Severus Snape and the Sorcerer's Stone
by the-anonymous-c
Summary: It is Severus Snape's 10th year of teaching, and perhaps due to the arrival of a certain foureyes boy, strange things have been happening from the getgo. Will Slytherin win the house cup? And just what is up with Quirrell? SSPS, Snape's POV
1. Default Chapter

**a/n: alright, first let me say that this story is fully intentioned to be stupid and random, so if you don't like that kind of stuff, don't read it. Or read it and tell me you hate it, whatever floats your boat. If you have a sense of humor and decide to read it, please review and tell me what you think. I only wrote this out of love for Snape and because I wanted to have a little bit of fun with my favorite-est character JK Rowling has ever created. :) **

It was the day before term started, and Severus Snape was not enjoying the prospects. Severus was a teacher. Usually he liked teaching, but today he decided he hated it. "And what's worse than having a job you hate?" an annoying salesperson voice said inside his head.

So it was lunch time, right, and you would expect Severus to be hungry around then. So...he was. Viciously so. In fact, he was so hungry that he came sprinting downstairs and very nearly falling to his doom, only to find his omelet splattered all over the kitchen. His house elf was lying dead in the pan he had used to cook it.

"What the- Severus thought, urging himself not to appear sad about his lunch or the elf. This wasn't the first time he had found a house elf in his omelet. He went outside to the edge of some woods, and placed the house elf, whose name had been Whocker, on the ground. Then he collected some rocks and dumped them on the elf, therefore creating a proper burial next to his other ones, which were beginning to stink a little. "Whocker was a good elf," said Severus, not knowing exactly what he meant by that, only that he wanted to get out of there pronto before the stink killed him. Then he stumbled out of the trees and down the street he lived on, past several muggles who gave him strange looks, and to the nearest friendly neighboring restaurant, which happened to be Olive Garden.

Several hours later, Severus was exiting Olive Garden, after threatening to sue the manager because they weren't treating him like family. He came to the double doors on the way out, and decided to try that dramatic bit of action where you opened both doors at the same time, one with each hand, and came striding through.

Only he forgot that there was a bar in the middle of the doors.


	2. the sorting ceremony

Skipping forward to the next night, we find our dear friend Severus sitting at a table in the great hall...playing with a drumstick. The ceremony was taking a longer time than usual to start. Severus reached under the table to check if he was wearing his lucky boxers tonight, then remembered two things:

1) he was wearing a robe

2) he was _always _wearing his lucky boxers

And so, contentedly, he waited for the ceremony to start. The first person that got called was a girl. Her face was pink, which is not the way faces should be, Severus thought, and she was-she had...what _was_ that word? BLONDE hair.

Severus was the head of Slytherin house at this weird school, which he always forgot the name of. But that wasn't the point. The point was, he hoped the pink girl would not be put in his house. Luckily, the hat agreed with him. "HUFFLEPUFF!" it shouted. It was then that Severus collapsed into a fit of silent giggles. Professor Sprout glared at him from down the staff table.

A few students later came a bush-haired girl with big annoying teeth. She looked like a promising enough student to drive you insane. Severus wished he had his black notebook with him. It was just his luck. The one night he forgot the stupid thing there was a whole new batch of students to make fun of. Really, it was killing him! As the bush-hair got sorted into Gryffindor, Severus tapped on Dumbledore, who turned towards him.

"Headmaster?"

"Yes, Severus?"

"Could I-ah-_excuse_ myself for a moment? Nature calls, you know."

But Dumbledore just stared at him with that maddening twinkle in his eye until Severus was forced to look away. What was it with that twinkle anyways? As Severus gazed longingly at the door to the great hall, a pointy faced boy that looked like a brat got sorted into Slytherin. _Why do they stick me with all the bad ones? _Severus thought. Then he looked at the remaining students waiting to be sorted. _Never mind._

The next boy stepped forward, looking worried, and Severus had a near heart failure. He also had a powerful flashback that will interrupt this story.

**POWERFUL FLASHBACK THAT WILL INTERRUPT THIS STORY:**

Severus remembered when he was a student himself. He knew some kids named Potter-the-Great, Porky Pettigrew, Stupid-ass Black, and Werewolf Dude. Their favorite hobbies included publicly humiliating Severus, failing important tests, putting dungbombs in Severus's belongings, flirting with girls who were either disgusted or numb as a board, calling Severus names, being too good for the girls that actually liked them, putting cat urine in Severus's ink bottles, almost killing themselves, setting Severus's homework on fire, breaking rules and getting away with it, reminding Severus he was ugly, and bragging. They were of a species called Popular.

**END OF POWERFUL FLASHBACK THAT WILL INTERRUPT THIS STORY.**

Now, whether you care or not whether Severus got over his shock, he did. And found that no one had even noticed his momentary paralysis. The reason he had the flashback he did, was because the boy getting sorted had the last name of Potter. And Severus vaguely remembered Dumbledore telling him to be prepared, because Potter-the-Great's son would be coming to the weird school soon. Severus had taken heed, and now kept a double-headed battleaxe in his office. Still—the shock was tremendous.

The hat was still trying to sort Potter-the-unknown. Severus noticed that he was a four eyes. He also noticed that "the hour doth grow late." He was going to pick up a cup and bang it on the table to get things moving, but Dumbledore just gave him another twinkly look and forced his hand back down on the table. Severus got mopey. This day was a bummer.

The hat finally sorted Potter-the-waster-of-time into Gryffindor. "I knew it," grumped Severus, fidgeting with the tablecloth. Potter-the-Great and all his old acquaintances had been in Gryffindor. "sh-sh-sh-shush," Professor Quirrell finally spit out. Severus glared at him. He had suspicions about the guy. Why did he wear a turban on his head? And why did Severus's dark mark burn every time he looked at him? Quirrell was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Severus had signed up for that job long before Quirrell, but Quirrell had been picked anyways. He thought Dumbledore must really enjoy playing favorites.

Meanwhile, all of the great hall was cheering. They cheered longer than they had cheered for anyone else, Severus thought, and everyone was whispering about him too.

The next guy to get sorted was a carrot-top Weasley. Severus thought there must be a hundred of those. He wondered how their mother did it. The Weasley got sorted into Gryffindor as well. As Professor McGonagall called another name, Severus yawned. He wondered how she could stand up there for so long, putting an old hat on the heads of about 40 children, and not lose her patience...or need to sit down. He asked Professor Flitwick what time it was and groaned. He was missing his favorite wizarding radio soap opera, just when it had been getting exciting. He wondered if Trent had run away yet, or if Libya had professed her undying love to Pebbles Johnson.

Finally, the ceremony was over, and the food appeared on all the tables. Dumbledore said he wanted to say a few words. Severus straightened up. He liked hearing the words he picked each year.

"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" Dumbledore said. Severus chuckled, then looked out across the tables of students enjoying their meals. "S-so...what's y-your f-f-favorite col-l-lor?" Quirrell asked him, trying to make friends and failing miserably. Severus ignored him. Potter-the-new -Gryffindor was looking at him intently. Severus returned the favor by staring back at him. Then the strangest thing happened. Potter-with-no-manners flinched backwards and broke away from his gaze, as if he had been maimed. Severus frowned. Either the guy wasn't right in the head, or there was something going on that Severus didn't know about. He thought about it as he dug into his peas.

**a/n: so tell me what you think everyone, c'mon, press the little button, you know you want to! I really do need to know if I should continue this.**


	3. welcome back to teaching, where a disast...

On Severus's third day back teaching, he was already sick of it. But when you're a former death eater, you really can't complain about the job they pick out for you.

It was a lovely sunny morning (haha, oxymoron) and Severus was standing outside the door to the staff bathroom, waiting for Flitwick to finish-which was taking forever. He imagined it must be hard for him because he was so small, but still, he wasn't getting any younger out there.

Just as Severus was about to make the decision to hold it in and live in discomfort for his first class, Flitwick came trotting out.

"Oh. Hello Severus," he squeaked in his squeakyish voice.

"What did you do, make a pile of books to get up to the toilet?" Severus sneered, "Any longer and I would have grown a beard."

Flitwick's smile faded quickly, and he quickened his pace going to his classroom, looking angry. It took awhile for Severus to realize he had even spoken, and then he reached into the sleeve of his robe and gave himself two snaps of the rubber band hanging loosely on his wrist. "Ouch. Ouch!" he muttered, "Who wants to bet I won't be able to move my wrist by the end of the week?"

Severus rushed out of the bathroom a few minutes later. He was going to be really late for his first class of the day. And late was not his style. While he was going down the stairs into the dungeons, he thought of how they really needed to install a heating system down there. Someday they were going to come down to the dungeons and find him dead, frozen in bed. He was also thinking about how he would arrive in his class and not look too stupid. He stopped in the hall to take out his schedule, and saw that the class inside waiting for him was made up of Slytherin and Gryffindor first years. The house of Potter-the-new-and-strange and...his own house. So much for setting an example.

In the end, Severus decided to just go for it and hope for the best. Striding into his dungeon classroom with his robes billowing behind him, he tried to keep an intimidating look on his face the whole time. He almost cheered upon reaching his desk. No one had laughed and he was only four minutes late after all! Severus's worst fear was having people laugh at him. He had had bad experiences with laughter.

Severus decided to start the class by taking roll call. Sipping a cup of apple tea that some house elf had kindly left on his desk for him, he began to call the names. When he came to Potter-who-was-in-his-class-right-now, he stopped and made a witty comment ("Ah, yes. Mr. Potter, our new--- _celebrity"_) that made the pointy-faced brat and two other rather fat Slytherins start guffawing noisily, thinking they were being discreet. Since Severus didn't feel like taking points off of his own house (plus he thought he was a pretty funny guy as well) at the beginning of the class, he ignored their chuckles and decided to start with an excellent speech about the beauty of potion-making. He used the same speech with all the new first years, but they didn't need to know that, did they?

...if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach" Severus finished. He liked his speech very much, and the dunderhead part was a new addition. Clearly Potter-the-not-so-polite-as-he-appears did not share Severus's love of potions or the speech about them, because he and the Weasley were looking at each other with their eyebrows raised. Which made Severus a little bit miffed. How rude can you get? No one raises their eyebrows at a teacher! Severus decided not to stand for this. In fact, he decided, on the spur of the moment, as always, to confuse the hell out of that guy and make him look stupid in front of his carrot top friend.

"Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood!" Severus asked him, making sure to say it really fast in case he did know. But...he didn't.

Severus said something to the extent of that fame wasn't everything, and advised him to remember that, before firing off another question about a bezoar. The Bush Hair girl he had seen the other night raised her hand up way high. He ignored her.

"I don't know sir," said the four eyes boy he was growing to dislike, pretending politeness. Severus knew he was really getting mad at him, which made him ask another question. That was when Potter-the-now-extremely-rude mouthed off to him about 'how about if he called on the bush-hair?'

That made Severus real steamed, so he told the class to write everything down as he explained to Potter-the-unbearably-rude everything he had claimed not to know. Then he noticed that the Bush Hair was still standing up with her hand raised. He snapped at her to sit down (he was right, she was way too eager) Then he took a point off of Gryffindor, but only one, which he thought was rather generous for all their tomfoolery. What _was _tomfoolery anyways?

Severus realized he had a class to teach and snapped out of it. He walked around putting people into pairs. He saw a boy that he didn't remember from the ceremony. He was in Gryffindor and was round and pinkish. Severus bet he could beat him up, which was a big thought, because the only other people Severus could beat up were a small supply of girls, which he wouldn't do anyways, and little kids probably, but that was even sicker to think about. He matched the one he could probably beat up with a guy who looked...the nearest? Then he came to Potter-the-wrath-incurring-boy, who he matched up with the Weasley who he guessed must be his lackey. He came to the two fat Slytherins, who looked extremely stupid, and decided that putting them together would waste only one set of supplies. There was an odd number, so he let the Pointy-Face Brat work by himself.

After that was done, he went around making sure they all did it right, and no one got too seriously maimed...all that good stuff. He suddenly recognized the Pointy-Face Brat as the son of a death eater he knew and didn't like, but had to put up with if he treasured his internal organs. This made a shiver pass through Severus, and he found himself glad he hadn't said anything when the Pointy-Face Brat had interrupted the class by laughing earlier. That's when he realized that the Pointy-Face Brat was looking at him. Severus didn't know what to do, so he quick walked over there, not knowing what he was doing, but knowing that he had to keep the kid from staring at him any longer. "Look at how great...(hmmm, what _was _his stupid name? Hadn't Lucius jabbered to him about his son for like an hour? Draco, that was it!) "Look at how great Draco is stewing those horned slugs," he told the class. They all turned towards the Pointy-Face Brat and looked at the mutilated slugs in front of him with puzzled expressions on their faces. Severus was about to tell them not to do theirs the same way, when he heard an explosion from somewhere in the classroom. Never mind. Two sets of supplies wasted. First years were great-if you had a death wish.

Severus ran over to the exploded cauldron, which now had potion seeping out of it onto the floor, and found the boy he could probably beat up covered in boils. And the potion had been an easy one too. Would wonders never cease? Plus, the idiot boy had wrecked his partner's cauldron. Severus gave him a piece of his mind and told the other guy to take him to the hospital wing. Then he cleaned up the mess with his wand.

That was when he decided to get Potter-the-not-so-great back for mouthing off, so Severus made up that Potter-the-Great's son had not told the boy-Longbottom was his name-that he was doing it wrong because he wanted to make himself look good. Then he took another point off of Gryffindor and sat contentedly behind his desk.

Severus felt like he liked teaching again. There were so many fun ingredients in potions, and so many drawers in his desk to put things, as well as to open and close at random for his own private amusement. Severus took out his black notebook and began to write things like:

"The Weasley's head is large but emptyish. I bet it's wider than a foot."

"Potter's favorite hobbies are picking his nose and glaring in my general direction." AND

"Do Granger's parents hate her? If I were her parents, I would hate her."

At the end of class, Severus dismissed everyone. Crabbe, one of the fat guys in Slytherin, whose whole life seemed to be focused on snorting and picking at wedgies, remained seated, staring blankly into space. Severus had to wave his hand in front of his face and remind him that class was over.

After everyone had gone, Severus sat back down again, and was having fun opening and closing all the drawers in his desk, which by the way he would never do when anyone else was around, when he realized that he still had two more classes to teach that day. He promptly fell to the ground and had a seizure.

**a/n: thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! For everyone else...please do so!! It's really helpful to know what you think :) **


	4. in which staff meetings become really un...

**a/n: I would like to give thanks to my wonderful reviewers**

**DarkestLabyrinth: (love the pen name) thanks so much! I'm so glad to hear you think it's great :)**

**blink gurl017: yeah, I had a fun time writing this story what with all those images…hehe. Thanx for reviewing!**

**bldybrilliant: don't worry, there is more :D Sidesplitting funny?? beams with pride oh how I dreamed this day would come! Lol, thankee!**

**a proud geek/freak: Well, well, if it isn't Mrs. K. Weasley…you just about advertised for me right there! Thanks for the review! HA HA…I got you addicted to fanfictiiiiiiiion….**

**duj: hey thanks, I'm glad u enjoyed it. I have read a couple of your stories and they are WONDERFUL…:D**

It was about a week later, and something exciting happened. Severus got an invitation. That never happened. After checking it for anthrax, he opened it up with trembling hands. It was just a staff meeting invitation. Except Severus didn't even know why Dumbledore sent those things, because you had to go anyways, or else you were deep in the soup, or whatever that saying was. The thing was, all the staff meetings were on days everyone had off. Severus thought Dumbledore must be sick-minded to do that.

As he made his way to the staffroom, he saw Phineas Nigellus in a picture, who asked if he wanted to have a tea party Wednesday. He didn't answer.

Severus looked up ahead of him and his heart rate quickened. Quirrell was there, walking along very slow and nervous-like to the staff meeting. He looked like he was talking to himself. That was when Severus had the very good idea of stalking Quirrell. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then got on tip-toes, and silently padded after Quirrell. Only Severus never found anything out, because Professor McGonagall was outside the staff room door.

"What in the world are you doing, Severus?" she asked with her loud mouth. He did the 'shhh' sign at her, but Quirrell had already turned in his direction, looking puzzled, and for a while, a little bit mean.

"SO!" Severus said, pressing his face up against Quirrell's and tightening his oh-so-flexible lips into a line.

"So what?" he asked, sounding nervous and confused at the same time.

While Severus thought on that one, Quirrell made a daring escape into the staff room.

The staff meeting was a bore. Professor Sprout started passing peanuts around, but everyone refused. Professor Binns got all depressed and went into a corner because he figured ghosts didn't count.

"Attention, everyone!" said Dumbledore, sounding like his esophagus was strained. Which wasn't unusual, Severus thought. "I would like to call this meeting to order to share some of our suggestions about some of the changes we would like to see in the school this year. Blab la blab la blab la_ BLA.." _

Severus felt eyes on him, and turned around in his seat a little. Professor Trelawney was staring right at him, looking a little faint, and smiling a wispy smile.

"Please do turn around," he hissed quietly at her.

She snapped out of it and looked at him, blushing. "Sorry Severus," she giggled. That was when Severus had a vague suspicion, and checked to see if there was a sticky note on his back. Nope. Gee, this room was very bright. Someday he bet he would probably go blind during a staff meeting. He wondered if it was daylight savings time. If so, he better turn his clocks back.

"Is that all right with you, Severus?"

"Huh?" A few people laughed.

"I asked if that was all right with you?"

"What?"

"If you could give Neville Longbottom extra lessons on Mondays. Potions seems to be his weak point."

The peanuts had just come around to Severus for the third time, and he dropped them in shock. Professor Sprout made a disgruntled noise from behind him. Dumbledore was looking at him with an expectant twinkle in his eye.

"Definitely not! I mean, what I mean is…I'm booked on Monday. Yes, definitely booked."

"That's too bad," Dumbledore said, not believing him. "Now, does anyone have any of their own suggestions about changes we could make?"

Severus raised his hand. So did a lot of other teachers.

"Hmm, let's see…Quirrell-who-I-don't-know-the-first-name-of?"

Severus felt a pang of jealousy, and did a silent 'humph' noise. Quirrell had raised his hand long after him. He must really be Dumbledore's favorite.

"I v-v-vote that n-no one sh-sh-should stalk anyone e-else in th-the h-halls."

"Stalking?" squeaked a frightened Flitwick. Severus wondered if he was wearing a mask or if his real face was really that scary.

"Well, I'd hope no one's doing that to begin with," Dumbledore said, looking at Severus, who tried to look clueless at the last moment.

"Agreed," said Professor McGonagall in her loud goose-voice from her spot next to Severus. Severus's ear almost fell off. He wondered if they were playing the top twenty wizarding smashes on his radio yet. He raised his hand a bit higher. It was starting to really ache.

"Ah, Professor Binns?"

Professor Binns ruffled his papers and gave everyone a shy look.

"I vote that we should have equal rights for ghosts," he rasped in his dry papery voice. Severus wondered if he ever noticed he was dead.

Professor Trelawney started humming under her breath. Sprout raised her hand.

"I vote that the Hufflepuff- she broke off and glared at Severus, who had a silent laughing fit. Dumbledore looked at Severus with raised eyebrows, so Severus canned it with much effort.

"As I was saying, I vote that the Hufflepuff (here Severus strained to keep his laughter in) Quidditch team gets more time on the pitch. Slytherin team is hogging it. They're out there just about every day!"

Severus raised his eyebrows. He hadn't meant to hog the Quidditch pitch, he just signed every petition the players in his house brought to him (after a while you don't even read them anymore).

Finally, Dumbledore called on Severus.

"Good, because my arm was really starting to hurt," he thought. Or did he _say _that? Judging by the way everyone was looking at him now, he had. He gave the rubber band around his wrist a snap under the table and grimaced.

"Don't overexaggerate the pain," said Clueless-but-thinks-she-knows-everything-McGonagall. "We know your arm doesn't really hurt."

"What was your suggestion, Severus?" Dumbledore asked, looking a trifle impatient. Wasn't trifle a kind of food?

_Hmmm, what** was** his suggestion? _

"I think we should make detention in the forbidden forest _without_ Hagrid. And that I should have a plaque that says my name on the door next year."

"What door would you want it on, Severus?"

Severus thought a while. "The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom is a nice place," he said innocently.

Dumbledore did not seem to pick up the clue.


	5. grading papers

**a/n: hey all, this is a short but humorous (at least 4 me) chapter…but there should be more coming as it is Thanksgiving break! cheers have a happy one, y'hear? Right, on with the story**

Severus seriously wondered why this was a chapter. Not that his wonderings ever really mattered. A few nights after the staff meeting, Severus was sitting at his desk in his dungeon, grading essays. The grading scale went like this:

O-outstanding

E-exceeds expectations

A-average

P-poor

D-dreadful

The first paper in the pile belonged to the Bush-Hair. He picked it up and skimmed it, humming the tune to the Weird Sister's newest hit. There were a lot of words in Bush-Hair's essay that were more than four syllables. Severus didn't know a lot of them. He thought she probably made them up, but he gave her an O not to look stupid. He wondered if her whole life revolved around homework.

Severus came to the Weasley's paper and noticed that he wrote really big on purpose to fill up the space. Besides that, it looked okay, so he gave it an A. He had just picked up the next paper, which belonged to Potter-his-new-least-favorite-student, when the door to his classroom opened and in came Pointy-Face Brat. _What is **he** doing in here? _Severus thought angrily, _more to the point, he didn't even knock! _

The Pointy Face Brat strode over to Severus's desk.

"Hello Professor," he said in a very drawling voice. Severus sat very still, trying to resist his sudden urge to pick up one of the quills on his desk and poke the kid's eye out.

"I just came by to see if I could have my essay back early, so I can see how well I did. When do you think mine will be done?"

_Never!_

"Soon, Draco. I am correcting them at this moment as a matter of fact, and I am pleased to say that yours is…"

_On the bottom of the pile_

"Next. So if you will wait a minute, it should be done."

The Pointy-Face Brat did not go and sit down or anything. Instead he stood in back of Severus's chair, looking over his shoulder as he corrected Potter-the-not-that-great-at-writing's essay. Severus did not feel so comfy with the arrangements. He finished skimming Potter-the-mediocre-student's essay, and was going to give him an A, or maybe a high P, when he suddenly was reminded that Potter-who-needs-to-try-harder was the number one death eater target, and that he had the son of a death eater's breath on his neck at the moment. _Screw it_ he thought, and scribbled a large D across the top of the paper. He could almost feel the Pointy-Face Brat's satisfaction.

Next, he skipped through the rest of the pile, before finding his unwelcome guest's parchment, which had imprints of stupid skulls on it. Severus thought that the Pointy-Face Brat must think he's cool. Without looking at what was on the paper, Severus gave the Pointy-Face Brat an O, and handed it to him. The Pointy-Face Brat sneered in triumph, and left the room. Severus thought that boy needed to practice his sneering.

The boy who he could probably beat up had gotten a D. Severus didn't even think he had known what the essay was supposed to be about. The two stupid Slytherins had also gotten D's, and just when Severus was getting really sick of seeing the letter D, some unknown Slytherin earned an E, making him nearly fall out of his seat with the pure joy of the change. Only he didn't. When you're a sinister Potions Master, you have to remain composed…you never know when someone might be spying on you.

When Severus had finished grading papers for the day, he went over to the chalkboard and pointed his wand at it, before remembering that he had forgotten the spell to make the words appear. So…he had to resort to using his emergency pack of Colorific Chalk-pastel colors. He had purchased it in a Muggle shop called CVS, just in case. They had asked Severus if he had an Extra Care card, whatever that was. Muggles were really weird.

Severus selected a pale green piece of chalk, and dragged it across the board just to make sure this Muggles didn't sell phony products, in case there was a no-satisfaction guarantee. Then he began to write the next lesson for tomorrow's first class. Chalk took some getting used to, and it sometimes made a sound that made Severus's teeth hurt. After Severus was done writing the ingredients they would need, he read Most Potente Potions for a while, and then went to bed dressed in his gray nightshirt. It was the only one he had.


	6. halloween

It was Halloween night, and the whole school was at a feast. Severus had taken time to organize his papers at his desk (which he did about ten times), before he felt satisfied that enough time had passed, and then made his way into the great hall.

The only open chair at the staff table was the one next to Professor Sprout, who was glaring so hard at him that he was almost afraid to sit there. She must still remember the staff meeting rather well. When Severus sat down, she moved her chair over, which was fine by him.

Dumbledore had gone overload with the décor, Severus noticed. He just hoped he didn't end up like McGonagall, and have a live bat swoop into his baked potato. All the food looked really good, and Severus had just started to cut himself a piece of pumpkin pie ('you're cutting it wrong!' said the now -exasperated-and-needing –to- blame- someone McGonagall), when the door to that lovely banquet burst open, and Quirrell came rushing in to freak everyone out.

"Troll, in the dungeons!" he said to Dumbledore. Severus thought his face looked panicked for other reasons than a troll. Then Quirrell muttered something else and fainted.

Of course after hearing this dreadful news of a troll in the dungeons, everyone was too freaked out to pay attention to anything else but freaking out. Except Severus, who knew to remain calm in the stickiest situations. So, instead of freaking out like everyone else, Severus stared at the fainted Quirrell with fake interest.

That's when he noticed that Quirrell was not really fainted. In the midst of the confusion, Quirrell got up, straightened his foolhardy turban, and snuck out the back of the hall. Severus knew where that led. He waited a couple of seconds before using his ultra-super spy skills to attempt to track-and-slay Quirrell all in one easy moment. Because now Severus knew what that phony guy was all about.

Severus began to track Quirrell, then paused long enough to tell the far and few readers of his tale what exactly he was doing. "I am tracking this guy because he is possessed by an evil guy that I prefer to call the Dark Lord, who used to be my boss and he wants this stone with cool powers and so now I have to do some guard duty over that rock. Except it's not even my turn." Severus said all this in one quiet breath, spun around, and continued to track Quirrell

Quirrell went up lots of stairs, and down a corridor with lots of pictures, where he paused a moment to look at one. Severus looked too, but he didn't see what was so fascinating about it. _Actually, _Severus got spaced on that picture, so when Quirrell moved on, he didn't notice until a few seconds later.

They got to a certain point in the castle, and Quirrell didn't seem to remember which way to take. He seemed to be talking to no one again, and while he did that, Severus caught up to him again, and watched as Quirrell went up some stairs, and pulled a piccolo out of his pocket. Severus watched from behind some armor, which creaked annoyingly. Suddenly Severus thought how he should probably jump out and interfere at this point, but it was too late. Quirrell opened a door and you could hear snarls from behind it. _That's Hagrid's dog Fluffy _Severus thought dumbly. Hagrid was a giant who didn't like to have any pets unless they were either really revolting, or had the ability to rip your head off or mutilate you. But he was a great guy. Yeah. Only Severus probably wouldn't bet a galleon on that. Aaaanyways…

Now the growling had calmed down, and he could hear music coming from behind the door. It was an awful tune. Severus guessed that Fluffy must not be picky about it's lullabies, because there was no way jose that _he_ would have fallen asleep to _that_.

When the three-head dog had calmed down sufficiently, Severus went over to the door quickly and opened it. Quirrell was kneeling by the trapdoor in the floor and trying to push Fluffy's paw off of it without waking it. He was doing a pretty good job too, until Severus strode over to him and hollered, "SO! THIS IS WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TO ALL THE TIME IS IT? WELL, YOU HAVEN'T GOT ME FOOLED!"

"S-S-S-Severus, listen t-to m-m-me…it's n-not wha-wha-what y-you th-th-think it is." Wow, did he sound stupid when he stuttered like that.

"YES IT IS! IT'S EXACTLY WHAT I THINK IT IS AND YOU KNOW IT!" Spit was flying from his mouth as he yelled. He saw some of it hit Quirrell. _Yes! _" IT WON'T BE VERY LONG BEFORE YOU ARE FORCED TO LEAVE THIS SCHOOL AND-AND

_And I'll take your job_

"And…your music sucks," he finished lamely.

Quirrell looked very very worried. Which Severus thought was very very nice of him. Because even he did not think he looked _that _scary when he screamed. Of course he didn't have a mirror around when he did it either. But then he realized that it wasn't him Quirrell was scared of. But by then it was too late. Funny how quiet dogs can be.

Before he could turn around, Severus found himself picked up by his leg, and the whole room went blurry as he was swung back and forth. _O god this can not be happening! Please don't let this be happening! I'm too young to die! I'll tell McGonagall her hair looks nice, I'll let Trelawney ask me out, I'll bake a pie for Potter-the-second, I'll give the boy-Longbottom-I'll give him extra lessons! Just please don't let me be maimed by this thing!_

And surprisingly, Severus was dropped, and he felt an awful pain in his leg. He decided it might be maimed enough to make his desperate promises void. Apparently, Quirrell had tried once again to open the trap door, and the three-head dog had turned its attention on him. Quirrell was now standing in dumb fright, as the thing closed in on him. Severus decided that he had better get out of there while the getting was good. He grabbed the wall and hoisted himself up. Sickish pain seared through his leg, which couldn't be having too great a day. Severus looked down and saw that it was mangled and bloody. Fortunately, he had seen a lot of gross things in his time, and didn't spend too much time staring at it. Clutching the wall for extra support, he booked it out of there. He made sure to close the door behind him, so that Quirrell and the monster dog could work it out in peace without disturbing anyone.

That was when Severus heard a bunch of loud noises coming from the lower region of the castle. He made a pained face, hoping Quirrell's dumb troll hadn't chosen his classroom to have a temper tantrum in. He hobbled downstairs, as quick as he could go, then had a random thought of peg legs, and gave a hoot of strangled laughter. He felt his legs get weak, so he shut up and pressed on.

It wasn't long before Severus heard footsteps behind him, and turned to see a really jumpy looking Quirrell following him. Severus gave him a flabbergasted look and Quirrell said nervously, "I h-h-had d-dog t-t-treats w-with m-m-me."

Severus felt a very disappointed feeling, and got a strong urge to haul off and hit the guy, then figured it wouldn't look good on his record and cooled it. Severus continued to walk down the stairs toward the noise, and Quirrell followed him, sputtering. "S-S-Severus, it's n-not, wha-what y-y-y-y-you th-think it is."

"Haven't you said that already?" asked Severus, doing a premium sneer which made his lips feel tight.

"I-I-I w-was j-just m-m-making sh-sure th-that the c-curses were ef-f-fective and th-the st-st-stone was s-safe." Quirrell was looking desperate."

"Were you?" snapped Severus, not interested. Quirrell was about to try again when they came to the source of the noise. Severus felt rather relieved. It was coming from the girl's bathroom. Professor McGonagall was walking a bit up ahead of him, about to enter. Severus followed her in, and the ever persistent Quirrell followed him.

Severus stared. Many stalls and sinks were smashed and squirting water, and the bathroom was a regular mess. Severus was glad he was not Filch. In the center of the floor was a fainted troll, and standing next to it, his wand dripping with snot, was Potter-who-shows-up-in-weird-places. Next to him was the Weasley. From behind him, Severus heard Quirrell make a whimper, then he went around the troll and sat on a toilet, looking wussy. And he was supposed to be Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Severus went closer to the troll and bent over it for a closer look. It looked like it might come awake soon. He was about to tell McGonagall this, but she was too busy lecturing Potter-the-defeater-of-trolls and the Weasley. To look like he was doing something, Severus gave those two a glanding look and nodded at whatever McGonagall was saying.

That was when someone stepped out of the shadows. It was the Bush-Hair. Only for once she didn't look too eager. She began to talk about how she thought she could handle trolls on her own because some book told her, and that Potter-the-courageous and the Weasley had saved her from near and certain death. Severus got the feeling that she was telling a whopper, but McGonagall seemed to believe it. Gullible.

McGonagall called the Bush-Hair foolish. Severus wondered why she could get away with name-calling without having her students hate her guts. Then she took five points from Gryffindor, which Severus thought was a-okay. Then she gave five each to Potter-the-brave-but-not-so-swift and the Weasley. Severus didn't care. What he cared about was that everyone would just hurry up and get out of the bathroom, so that he could lock Quirrell in there with the troll on the way out.

Finally, his wish was granted. The students left, but McGonagall stayed a little bit longer, to confer with Severus, who wished he could be a student at the moment.

"Severus!" honked McGonagall, "are you paying attention to me?"

That's when Severus's leg started hurting most painfully. "See you tomorrow," he mumbled incoherently, and limped down toward the dungeons before she could question him any.

When Severus got down to his classroom, he checked it for troll footprints before going into his office and locking the door behind him. His office had lots of pickled things in potions in jars sitting on the shelves. He didn't know why he kept them, because he would probably never use them, but they were at least good for creeping students out that came for detention. They even creeped him out sometimes.

Severus sat down at his desk and took out a paper. He was going to write either a lesson plan for next week or a beware note to slip onto Quirrell's desk next morning. He decided on the latter, and started to work on it, but he kept getting distracted by a pickled rabbit liver in a purple potion. After glancing at it for about the 50th time, he decided this would not do. Getting up, Severus took it down from the shelf and hid it behind a chair. He went back to his desk and finished the note, then went into his private chambers which were connected to his office. He stuck the note under his pillow so he wouldn't forget it, put a makeshift bandage on his leg, and fell asleep with his robes still on. When you've almost been killed by a three-head dog, you tend to get a tad bit exhausted.


	7. a very hassling day

Well, the Fluffy incident was a couple of days away, and Severus needed a replacement for his bandage. He hated limping, it made him feel like a cripple. Plus people stared. He felt like shouting had they ever seen a wounded soldier before. But he didn't.

As he was walking across the grounds of the weird school he didn't know the name of, Severus spotted Potter-the-daring-yet-stupid. He was standing in a little circle by a stone wall with the Weasley and Bush-Hair. Severus guessed they were a genuine club now. He seriously wondered if they had a name for their club.

The way those three were standing looked like they were trying to hide something. Probably they were. He looked for whatever they were hiding, but they were pretty good at hiding it, because he couldn't see it. He wondered if they were doing drugs or plotting the ends of this world. Or possibly they were gossiping about him. Severus thought he must be paranoid, but still…

Then he noticed that Potter-who-must-be-doing-something-illegal was holding something that looked like a book. _Ah-ha! _Severus thought dumbly. He didn't know why he thought that about a book, but oh well. Severus limped over to them, trying not to think about peg legs, which still made him laugh. They saw him coming, and rushed to hide whatever it was they had in the middle of their circle. The Bush-Hair looked especially guilty.

"What's that you've got there, Potter?" Severus asked, indicating the book. Potter-the-suspicious showed it to him. It was a book about Quidditch. Severus was a bit torked at the moment. He knew there was something else, but they just weren't showing it to him. So Severus said that library books were not allowed outside of school, and took the book, along with five points from Gryffindor, which made his leg feel better he believed. He wondered if that was really a rule, but he didn't want to ask Madam Pince, who he was secretly afraid of. Which was why Severus didn't use his library card so much anymore.

As Severus limped away, he saw Potter-the-very-secretive do one of his specialty glares at him. Then he heard him mutter something in a mad voice, and ask rather loudly just what was wrong with his leg? The Weasley then did some ill-wishing and said that he hoped it was hurting him.

When Severus got inside the school, he went into his office and lit the fire, without thinking about the consequences of this. A few minutes passed while Severus warmed up in comfort, and then a loud pop sounded, and Lucius Malfoy's head was looking at him from the flames.

"Not you," Severus groaned quietly. He thought of 'accidentally' putting the fire out.

"What did you say?" Lucius asked.

"Nothing. Can we talk later?"

"Wellll, I _wanted_ to talk to you now about news on our master and how Draco is doing at school and…"

So it was that some three hours later, Severus stumbled out of his office with a headache that he feared might kill him. He went up from the dungeons and saw Filch prowling in a hall. Severus thought he had never seen that guy caretaking before and wondered if he slacked off and just prowled all day, looking mean. He went down the Filch hall and tapped on Filch, who spun around looking angry.

"It's just me, 'Gus," he said, "Do keep your pants on."

"Argus," Filch muttered, licking his chops in a slobbery way. Severus wished he hadn't seen that. He wondered if Filch was related to Fang. Fang was Hagrid's drool dog. Except Filch smelled like fried fish and Fang smelled like drool probably.

"What do you want, Professor?" asked Filch.

Severus told him he needed new bandages for his leg. Filch took Severus to the staff room, opened a cupboard, and got some bandages. Severus wished he could see the box they had come in, so he could know if they had a durability guarantee and would stop the bleeding for certain. But Filch didn't show him the box. He just told him to hitch up those robes.

Severus hitched up those robes. Filch did a gasp and a whistle and asked how Severus got that war wound.

"Well, 'Gus," he said, ("Argus," Filch muttered) I was doing some extra strenuous guard duty up where they keep that dog of Hagrid's, and it…well, you can see what it did."

Filch shook his head. Severus thought he heard a small knock on the door, and hoped it wasn't Trelawney. Filch didn't seem to have noticed the knock, so Severus ignored it too.

"But I'm fine," he said stiffly, so that Filch wouldn't think he was a sissy. "Blasted thing," he muttered on second thought, "how are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?"

Filch looked stupidly bemused, and seemed about to spit out his theory, when Severus happened to look toward the door, and saw it…dun dun dun…open! And staring right at him from the doorway was none other than Potter-who-is-dead-meat-now.

"POTTER!" Severus screamed in anger, dropping his robes quickly. He felt very embarrassed that Potter-the-so-very-nosy had very possibly been seeing all of this.

Unbelievably, Potter-the-numb did not seem to take the hint. Instead he stayed there in the doorway and yammered that he wanted his book back, so could he have it now?

Severus stared at him a moment before yelling very loudly for him to _get out of there._ Finally, Potter-the-disrupter-of-awkward-scenes seemed to understand, and he bolted. Severus stared after him a while, and then looked back at Filch, who was still holding a bandage out to him. It was the very same bandage he had been holding out to him about three minutes ago. Severus imagined his arm was getting tired, so he took it with a grumble about going to bed after this.

That was when Severus realized he had a class to teach that afternoon. "You are doing blablbalblablbalblabbla today," he stormed. He then sat slumped in his desk for the rest of the class and didn't go around checking potions like he usually did. He wondered if Dumbledore ever gave teachers breaks when they were hurting units. At the end of the class, Severus jumped up and told everyone they had two hundred miles of parchment for homework due tomorrow. Then he realized that that was impossible and shortened it to two feet. Then sat down again and put his head on his desk.


	8. never wear flammable robes to a quidditc...

**a/n: thanks so much to my reviewers for the encouragement, and I feel the need to focus on a question someone asked**

**Unsocial Butterfly: "has Sevvy ever been kissed?" I don't know obviously, but it brings tears to my eyes to think that he never has, which, let's face it, is the most likely answer. Poor Sev. Though if _I _went to Hogwarts with him, it'd be a different story… wink wink sry, got carried away in my musings!**

Severus woke up the next morning and still had a headache. He reached for the advil and accidentally turned on his radio, which hollered that they would be having a chance of showers. Severus swiped his radio off of the bedstand in efforts to get at the advil, and it broke on the floor. Plus the advil got pushed farther away from his grasp. Severus gritted his teeth and his nose made a sound that he believed was vented frustration. He wondered whether he should just get up, but then decided on some random whim to pretend he was a cripple that couldn't ever leave his bed. He reached again for the advil and held his breath. This time he got it. Only his piggy bank fell off and broke on the floor. Lucius Malfoy had given it to him. The pig had fangs and it said "Purebloods rock!" on the side. Severus had almost puked receiving that thing.

Heading to breakfast after having no music to get dressed to, Severus felt extra-special grumpy. He wouldn't be able to listen to his favorite wizarding soap opera tonight. And Pebbles Johnson had been planning to convince Libya not to commit suicide. Since no water fountains had been installed in the dungeons, Severus stepped out of his office with an advil in his hand, planning to have it with breakfast. It was a nippy morning he thought. Severus went up the stairs, and down a hall where there was some graffiti that claimed he had farted. Only he hadn't. Severus planned to report that to the headmaster.

Severus kept walking until he came to a wall and then realized that he had missed the great hall and turned around. A couple of nearby first years giggled so he looked at them real scary and they parked their tongues, or whatever that saying was.

In the great hall, Severus swept down between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, and stopped when he got to the staff table. The only empty seat was between Professors Sprout and McGonagall. Professor Sprout tried to stuff the chair under the table while stretching her arm over, trying to hide the space. Severus was no fool to her tricks though. He went to stand in a patient fashion behind her, clearing his throat every once in a while until she gave up and let him sit.

The students and staff were buzzing with excitement about a Quidditch game today, so loudly that Severus ripped his napkin in half and was thinking of sticking it in his ears when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Professor McGonagall.

"You're on, Severus," she honked at him.

Severus made a I-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about-so-please-do-shut-up face and crammed some toast in his mouth. McGonagall didn't pick up the clue.

"You pay me four galleons if Gryffindor wins this morning and I'll pay you four if Slytherin wins."

Severus commenced to dice his sausage up into little bits.

"Severus, I know you hear me…"

Severus started sorting the sausage pieces into piles depending upon size.

"SEVERUS!" Half of the staff table looked up. Severus wished she would keep it to a dull roar. He looked at her with his eyebrows raised. "Did you wish to speak to me, Minerva?" he asked. Minerva was such a dumb name.

"So do we have a deal?" she asked. "I mean, your team squashed mine last time so it can't be that much of a risk." She had something tricky in her eyes, and Severus was about to say that he didn't think that was a fair bet, but Dumbledore was also looking at him, so he felt peer pressure inside of him.

"Alright," he said, thinking how Professor McGonagall's team had always been a bunch of creampuffs, which comforted him.

"Severus, Minerva?" Professor Sprout butted in. "How do you like my new hat? It's for working in the greenhouses."

"It's rather nice," Professor McGonagall said.

"What do you think Severus?"

Severus looked. The hat was dark green and squashy. Severus said he thought it looked like roadkill.

Professor Sprout's eyes widened and she turned away to talk to Professor Trelawney. "Only I wish you hadn't asked me," he said to her back, which wasn't responding. Severus sighed and snapped himself twice with his rubber band. He made a wincing face.

"Don't expect us to feel sorry for you now because your leg hurts," squawked doesn't-know-anything Professor McGonagall, giving him a mad look. Severus had a strong urge to flick a piece of sausage at her. Instead he turned back to his plate and found that his advil had been knocked off by Professor Sprout and was on the floor. Scowling, he reached for it with his foot, but someone passed the table and stepped on it. And so that was the end of that.

At 11 o' clock, Severus found himself sitting out on the teacher's stands, getting ready for the Quidditch game to start. He almost had a row all to himself, except that Trelawney was sitting shyly on the very end. She looked so close to the edge that she might fall off. Severus seriously wondered if he had cooties. _Circle circle dot dot_, he thought stupidly, waiting for everyone to get seated. Quirrell sat behind him and began to gnaw on a stiff bagel, which Severus found a bit of an annoyance to his ultraviolet ears. Didn't ultraviolet mean light? He heard a rustle next to him and saw Filch sit down.

"'lo, 'Gus," Severus said blankly.

"Argus," Filch muttered in such a rumbly way that Severus feared the guy might hurl. And he did not happen to have a barf bucket at hand. The game was starting, and Severus looked out into the stands to see a sign that said "POTTER FOR PRESIDENT" Only he couldn't think why, so he ignored that bit of info.

When his field of extra-sensory vision directed itself back onto the field, Severus saw that the players were coming out. He watched the Gryffindor captain, who went by the name of Branch or something treeish as he argued with Flint. Flint was Severus's team's captain, and was not his favorite cheese on the trolley, so to speak. He didn't even know the guy's first name. Severus bet it was Brutus. He also seriously wondered if Flint had a dental plan, because that boy's face was just screaming for braces.

The Quidditch players filed out onto the field in what Severus believed was called raw spaghetti style. He saw Potter-the-vastly-annoying in the midst of them. Captain Twig was talking to him. That was when Madame Hooch informed them that the quaffle was released and the game had begun. Only Severus didn't need a rocket scientist to tell him that.

A chaser from Gryffindor got the quaffle first. Then another Gryffindor. Then Flint, who Severus suddenly decided he liked a little bit more. Flint startedto make a goal but Captain Log of the Gryffindors stopped him. Severus zoned out for a while, and when he looked again a Gryffindor named Katie Bell had the quaffle. Severus thought she was one hot potato. He often stared at her when giving homework assignments. He was still staring at her when she got hit by a bludger in the back of the head on Flint's orders. Severus decided that Flint was the ugliest person he had ever seen.

Gryffindor scored a while later, and Severus heard McGonagall chuckle with hearty laughter a few rows above him. He turned to her

"Please do tune it down," he said, turning around to look at her.

"Y-you're j-j-just j-jealous because Sl-Slytherin isn't w-w-winning," said Quirrell-who-he-didn't-remember-inviting-into-the-conversation.

Before Severus could give Quirrell his two cents so to speak, something happened. Potter-the-pretty-good-Quidditch-player spotted the snitch. Severus remembered how his father Potter-the-Great had acted around snitches, and wondered if his son went about catching them the same way. If so, they would need someone out and ready to do the Heimlich maneuver on the side of the field.

Then the fishiest thing ever happened. Potter-who-dances-with-snitches had jerked to a halt. Soon his broom started bucking wildly out of control. Severus knew what it was immediately. He had had much experience with broom jinxes before. Most of the time he was on the receiving end of them, which was why he had been recently diagnosed with Broomophobia.

After about a minute of watching Potter-in-trouble bucking up and down on that broom, Severus realized that everyone on the field was really really stupid. Because obviously they did not know a broom jinx when they saw one. So once again, it was up to Severus.

Severus scanned the seats around him, looking for the mysterious traitor in their midst, but it was hard to concentrate with Professors Sprout and Flitwick yelping at him to 'stop giving the Slytherins signals to do unfair moves because we know you are'. Severus gave them a what-the-hell look and took a notebook out of his robes. He started writing down the suspects the Nancy Drew way.

Professor McGonagall leaned over his shoulder to try and look at the paper, and Severus kept having to move it out of the way.

"I know you're writing instructions to give to Flint to win the game," she said in an annoyed tone. She wouldn't stop looking over his shoulder, so Severus flipped the pad to another piece of paper and put it in plain view. He started drawing the setup for hangman. Finally McGonagall was satisfied that he wasn't cheating and stopped looking.

Severus turned around and looked behind him to where his key suspect lay. Quirrell was sure enough staring at Potter-in-serious-trouble-now and mouthing a jinx. He took note of which broom jinx Quirrell was using and where he was in it, and then began to mutter the countercurse.

"I knew it!" shrieked Professor Sprout from behind him, "you're telling them what to do!"

Severus painstakingly tried to ignore her as he continued to say the countercurse.

He was about halfway through it, and Potter-in-slightly-less-trouble-now was looking like he might have a chance, when Severus felt heat near his feet. Severus was just thinking how maybe they had installed heaters in the Quidditch stands, when Professor Trelawney yelled

"You're on fire!"

Severus sat in shock for a minute, forgetting about the countercurse. That lady _never _yelled. Severus turned around and looked at the people behind him, wondering who Professor Trelawney had been talking to. McGonagall, Sprout, Quirrell, and Flitwick were all staring at the bottom of his robes. He looked there too and saw bright blue flames.

Severus let out a strangled yelp, got up, and started stomping on the bottom of his robes. That was when he realized that they were the robes he had gotten for 60 off at a spring blowout sale at Madame Malkin's. The only problem was, they were highly flammable.

Meanwhile, Gryffindor had won the match. As Severus had predicted, Potter-who-has-a-death-wish had swallowed the snitch. He spit it out and yelled like a banshee that he had caught it, which was pretty duh if you asked Severus. Looking down at his burnt, ruined robes with a doomed expression on his face, Severus realized that he only had two other sets. "Okay, four galleons to me, Severus!" honked Professor McGonagall with her loud mouth. Severus looked in the pocket of his ruined robes. He only had two, which he thrust at her. "Severus- "Shut it," he grumped, and left the Quidditch pitch.


	9. very close to but not quite Christmas

**Disclaimer: I don't remember whether I did one of these before, so here goes… I don't own ANYTHING! ANYTHING, you hear me??? I don't own Snape (shame…) Not even some of what Snape says, like in the tree confrontation in this chapter…I'm just a loser with no money so don't sue me. On to better things :)**

A couple of days later, close to what is known to most as Christmas break, Severus awoke with a start, feeling something cold near him. Colder than the usual air, that was. He sat up in bed and blinked stupidly, looking for that mystery of a cold source.

That's when Severus saw it. In the corner of his room was a weird apparition that looked in the shape of a short, chubby witch. There was a lot of smoke around her. Severus was going to pinch himself but stopped when he thought about how that was just _too _cliché! Then he thought how that was a really dumb thought. Then he thought about badgers in mushroom houses…then he glared at the narrator, who is not supposed to be centering on his private thoughts.

Back to the shape, which just kinda…sat there. Severus stared at it some more, wondering if there was some dry ice in the room, because that smoke just kept coming. Then an eerie voice drifted out of the smoke.

"I am the ghost of Christmas past!" it said.

Severus leaped out of his bed and ran over to his wand, which had fallen into a crack behind his bedside table. He tried to reach down and get it, but alas, his arm was just not doing its job. Severus frowned. He did not remember being a shortarm. Feeling that there was nothing left to do, he turned to the shape.

"Why are you here?" he asked it in an annoyed voice. He wondered if you could be annoyed at ghosts and get away with it. Apparently you could, because the ghost just said, "I am here to show you a time back when you were-agh!"

The ghost had been moving towards Severus when it tripped on his smashed piggy bank from the last chapter. It sprawled stupidly across the ground, revealing it's true identity.

Severus just stared awhile at Professor Sprout, who stared back at him. That's when Severus noticed two things

Professor Sprout badly needed a tissue

he was in a nightshirt

This second thought caused Severus a wee bit of panic, so to speak. Crossing the room in a dash, he locked himself in his private restroom and sat on the toilet moping about how his reputation was now in shambles and all that jazz. Then Severus remembered that he didn't have a reputation to begin with. Then he wondered whether he should be happy about that or not.

After about ten minutes, Severus realized he had a class to teach right after breakfast. Which would be right now since he had slept right through breakfast. Opening the bathroom door cautiously, Severus stuck his head out. There was no sign of Professor Sprout anywhere. Which was good, Severus thought, since he knew the cruciatus curse real well. Then he felt guilty about that thought, since he _had_ called her hat roadkill a few days before. Then he wished that the narrator would _stop _invading his privacy. Eh hem…

After he got dressed in one of his two other pairs of robes that hadn't been set on fire, Severus went to the small basket of fruit on his table and selected an apple. It was a Granny Smith. Severus thought those were too sour for his liking, but all the Gulden Delicious kinds were eaten. Cutting the apple in half with his cheap Betty Crocker knife, Severus placed one half in a glad bag to save it for later, and found that, dun dun dun…he wasn't really mad _or_ glad, and so those muggles were cheap people.

Deciding that he had had enough of doing things without magic, Severus went over to his bedside table once more to get his wand from the crack. Only he still couldn't reach. That's when Severus started to feel really pissy. Storming over to the door, he wrenched it open, ("hey there!" said a nearby picture angrily), tore through his office, and out into his classroom.

Apparently Professor Sprout had forgotten to close the door again on her way out, because Severus had no other way to explain the sea of first year faces staring apprehensively at him as he clutched a bag with half an apple inside of it and breathed heavily.

Well, if you thought the situation couldn't get any worse, you would be wrong. Because just then, Severus had a revelation, and dropped his apple to the floor with a thud. Because seated at the back of the classroom on one side was Potter-who-he-had-so-recently-saved AND on the other side was The Pointy Face Brat. _This will be a fun class _Severus thought with Sarcasm. Sarcasm was a great friend of Severus's. You could say that it had got him through a lot.

"Today we will be brewing the Draught of Invisibility," Severus murmured in a I-just-got-out-of-bed-but-I'm-trying-to-sound-scary voice. Then he said the first random threat that came to his head and directed it the boy he bet he could beat up, who looked mighty shaky as always. Severus thought about Richter scales for a second before he realized that he did not have a wand on him to write the instructions for the potion.

Storming over to his desk drawer, he selected a pale blue piece of chalk and started to write furiously on the board. Halfway through, he heard a snap and the chalk broke. Severus heard a laugh from behind him and gave the laugh a detention. It shut up.

Luckily, the rest of the class passed by okay. The Pointy Face Brat didn't stir up any fights for once, and obviously didn't know that it was Severus who had saved Potter-who-he-had-saved-a-while-ago-now. After going around checking cauldrons, giving the boy he bet he could beat up a zero for the day, and struggling to come up with another undeserved compliment to give the Pointy Face Brat, who looked expectant, Severus made his way back to his seat under the glare of Potter-who-was-so-not-worth-saving. He took out his black book and, after scanning the classroom, wrote how the Bush-Hair had an unlucky habit of eating her quills slowly but surely. Severus used to have that habit, but he had conquered it when his quill had been replaced by a dung-encrusted hippogriff feather one lovely morn.

At the end of class, Severus flapped his jaw some more and told everyone they would have to write an essay on this potion and how to mix it properly. Potter-who-never-sent-him-a-thank-you-note glared at him some more. Severus seriously wondered why, since he was one of the dumb nuggets who hadn't done it right in the first place. He also wondered whether Dumbledore would raise his wages if he left a box of lemon drops on his desk as bait.

As everyone crowded out of the dungeon door, Severus remembered that it was his turn to check on Fluffy today. Getting behind a boy with brown hair that smelled like he had forgot his antiperspirant, Severus followed everyone out, closing the door behind him. He then paved his way through the crowd and walked quickly down the corrider towards the stairs, thinking how they should install a lighting system down here instead of torches, which made him feel like a crypt keeper. Which made him feel old. He kept having to remind himself that he was only 31 and not over the hill yet.

As Severus approached the stairs, he noticed that they were blocked by a tree. Yes, a tree. Severus wondered how many times he had told Hagrid to bring them in the other way. Apparently, half-giants had short term memories.

Then Severus noticed something else. Potter-the-snitch-swallower and his sidekick The Weasley were standing on the stairs near Hagrid and the tree, bickering their heads off with who else but the Pointy Face Brat, who of course was stirring up a fight. Severus thought he must have been stupid to think a day could pass without that gelatinous boy pissing someone off. Wait-didn't gelatinous have to do with pudding or something?

That's when Severus saw The Weasley dive at the Pointy Face Brat, all violent-like.

"WEASLEY!" he hollered, coming up the stairs. The Weasley let go of the Pointy Face Brat's robes quick-like.

"He was provoked, Professor Snape," said Hagrid, then blubbered about The Pointy Face Brat insulting The Weasley's family. Severus gave him a there's-no-proof-except-for-the-fact-that-its-obvious-that's-what-happened look.

"Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid," he said, trying not to look at The Pointy Face Brat's smirk. He didn't even screw up the side of his face correctly. Severus took 5 points off Gryffindor, and told everyone to 'move along', and received a near death threat from The Weasley, who was a bad whisperer.

Severus then commenced to check on Fluffy, which resulted in a lot of stale air, a brush with death, and a headache.

Go figure.

**a/n: to all people who have reviewed this: you do not know how thankful I am for you…you folks rock, you're my fuel to keep it goin'! I realize this story took a while to update, and thanks for not getting _too _impatient and launching toothbrushes or something else foul and unimaginable at me. Hope you liked this chappie, but regardless of whether you did or you didn't you should..REVIEW! mwahahahaha! gets locked up in her padded room **


	10. christmas

**a/n: 'ello 'ello! Well, I consider myself very God-blessed as well as lucky that the buses weren't working and school was closed today , hooray! The second time this week too! As a result of my happy mood, I decided, 'hey why not write about dear Sevi? Because writing about Sevi makes the world go round, just like everything else Severus hehe. So here you have Severus's Christmas, during Harry's first year. And while Harry might have had a grand old time, Severus certainly didn't. Poor him.**

Severus woke up a couple days later and ta-da! His headache was finally cured. Which was a good thing, Severus thought, because he had been about to sue the makers of Advil for not following through on their lame promises.

Only when he sat up in bed fifteen minutes later, did Severus notice how his head was swimming, how deathly cold he was, and how his throat felt like there was a bludger inside of it. _Bludger bludger bludger _he thought stupidly for no apparent reason.

That's when Severus remembered something. No, he remembered two things:

he had forgotten to take his NyQuil

it was Christmas day

Severus switched on his now-fixed-by-a-house-elf-named-Dinkle radio and listened to a guy named Alf blab about his premium steak cuts, before waiting through Dora, who was telling her friend Sheila how sexy this new brand of dress shoe made your calves look.

Finally, it was on to Grady with the weather, where he informed Severus that no precipitation had come yet, but was that a cloud he saw on the horizon? Which basically meant, "ha ha suckers, another brown Christmas for you."

After the weather report, it was on to an advertisement for Lavender shampoo by Glenda Chittock of Witching Hour. Severus seriously wondered whether salespeople were normally that cheerful, or if being pumped full of helium before they gave their speech was part of the job.

Severus then had a juicy-good thought. Shutting off his radio, he turned to the end of his bed on all fours, and crept slowly to the end of it. Taking a big breath, he looked down. There it was. Severus's annual Christmas present which was always wrapped in the same small square box-that-Dumbledore-uses-every-year.

Severus gave the box a suspicious look and nudged it with his toe. It was light. A sense of deja-vu washed over him, and he opened the package carefully. Socks. Again. Severus thought how Dumbledore had given him socks for Christmas since he had begun this not-so-luxurious job. And that equaled a ballpark figure of about a decade.

Seeing that he had nothing better to do, Severus took to examining his socks carefully. Only all he found out was that the tag said Lima Bean! which must have meant the color, because he ended that enchanted activity when he found a piece of old toast crusted onto one of the socks. So clearly Dumbledore hadn't had time to go out to his local wizarding mart. Severus put the socks under his bed until further notice.

Noting that there would be a Christmas feast tonight, Severus put on his fat robes, took his vitamins in a baggy for good measure, and left his realm of the castle to go mingle with the commoners, so to speak.

His first stop was the great hall for breakfast, where Professor McGonagall reminded him that he owed her 2 galleons, and that she was going to start adding interest. And since Severus did not happen to have anything on him at the moment, he couldn't do much about that bit of news.

Severus started munching on a tater tot, but his appetite was ruined when someone reached across him for the ketchup, and dripped two large puddles of it onto his pancake shaped like a Christmas tree.

Leaving the hall, Severus gave the bathroom a visit, where a nice puke informed him that he had the stomach flu. On the way out, he passed Professor Flitwick, who was standing on a step stool examining his teeth.

"Stop hogging the Quidditch pitch, Ravenclaw needs to practice sometime this year," he stated, which Severus guessed was the equivalent to 'Merry Christmas.'

And now guess what? Severus was bored. For once. He didn't know why people complained, it was rather fun. Going down into the teacher's lounge, he turned on the fire, sat down in his low black armchair, and clutched his stomach for a while until it agreed to stop being rowdy for the moment.

Then he picked up a Wizard's World magazine and did a quiz to find out what kind of person he was for the holidays. All his answers ended up in the 'Scrooge' category. Switching that magazine for an old Daily Prophet, he found a pencil on the floor and began to do the crossword.

Just then, Professors Sprout and Vector came into the staff room, quite disturbing his peaceful aura. They were babbling like maniacs about what presents they had received from other staff and even students like the Bush Hair. Severus waited about five minutes, but when no one had shut up, and he still couldn't find a word to rhyme with canary, he gave up and left the room.

Severus walked up and down corridors for the rest of the day. Once he came across the boy he bet he could beat up, and started to feel nauseous. Only it was tough luck for him, because the staff bathroom was two floors below him.

The boy he bet he could beat up looked nervous, and started to turn into the boy's bathroom. Severus saw and sprinted after him, kicking up his legs real high as he ran. The boy he bet he could beat up noticed and apparently got a faulty message from what he saw, because his eyes widened and he bolted into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Severus skidded to a stop in front of the door and was going to demand that he open it up, when—

He threatened to strangle the narrator if she mentioned what happened after that…so ya'll can just guess what that dramatic pause meant.

Later on, at the Christmas feast, Severus seated himself at the far end of the High Table. The words High Table always made him sound like a knight, Severus thought. Everyone appeared to have digested the info that he was sick today, because instead of the usual one empty spot in between him and the next person, there were three.

Severus just sat there eyeing the food everyone was eating. He took out his vitamins and had them with his pumpkin juice. His eyes wandered onto the students, and the turkey Potter-the-fortunate-not-to-be-sick was chomping.

Severus heard laughter from somewhere along the staff table, and noticed Flitwick telling jokes to everyone which he had gotten out of a joke book and written on the back of his hand. He also noticed that the sound of the crackers going off was really gnawing his ear off. Then he saw Hagrid kiss Professor McGonagall, who giggled and turned red. Severus believed that seeing that had greatly heightened his heart rate and made him subject to heart attack.

Then Severus noticed, with the kind of feeling that goes along with creepy music, that Quirrell was not there. Which made him sure that Quirrell was somewhere else.

Severus got up with the intention of asking Dumbledore if he could leave, then decided that that wasn't such a great idea when he noticed that Dumbledore was wearing a flowered lady's bonnet and cackling madly. And so he just decided to take that as a yes.

Leaving the great hall, Severus went to have a puke and then began a search for Quirrell about the castle. _The guy always picks the holidays_ he thought, as he peered into Quirrell's classroom, which was as empty as the head of the Weasley and the two fat Slytherins who were always with the Pointy Face Brat _and_ the boy he bet he could beat up combined. And that was a lot of head space.

On his way up to check the third floor corridor, Severus was stopped by Filch, who invited him into his office.

"I'm making toast," Filch informed him, as he put an unidentifiable black thing on his plate. Severus tore his gaze from a sketch of a toilet plunger lying on the table that he had been staring at, and gave Filch a that's-lovely-but-I-really-don't-care look . He wondered what was the point of inviting him in anyways? Was Filch really Quirrell's partner in crime who was simply delaying him here with his sleazy discussions on toast?

"I must go, 'Gus," he said smoothly, deciding not to hang around.

"If I see any students hanging around tonight, what should I do?" Filch asked, looking rather stupid. Severus knew he was afraid of the dark, so he said he could contact him if that happened, just to shake the guy off. While he talked, he made sure to breathe a lot of sick air into Filch's face so as to get going quicker.

Severus arrived at the third floor corridor and peered around a corner real sneaky-like. Sure enough, Quirrell was there in front of the Fluffy door, pacing and talking to a voice that was coming from his turban.

"Tonight?"

"Yesssss…"

"-but master-

"You heard me Samson"

Samson? Severus almost choked on that one. Quirrell had always seemed more the Alfonso type to him. He also noticed that Quirrell was not stuttering like he usually did. Turning his opti-micronic (whatever that meant) hearing onto the conversation again, he noticed that Quirrell seemed to be breaking down.

"Okay, okay…I'll do it," he sobbed, turning towards the door.

Thus followed a heroic scene from Severus in which he leaped out from his hiding place and used several fluid motions to block Quirrell's progress.

"S-severus?" Quirrell asked, starting up with the obvious fake stutter again.

"Booyah," Severus said flatly. He didn't even want to know where he had got that from.

"How n-nice to s-s-see you. I w-w-was just p-passing by…"

"Do you remember our last meeting, Quirrell?" Severus asked.

"Y-yeah," said Quirrell, whose mouth twitched for a second like he was going to smile.

"Stop with that infernal stutter!" Severus snapped, "I know it's not real!"

What Severus also knew, but didn't think it wise to say, was that Quirrell had a certain Dark Lord under his turban who was driving him to do evil deeds. How you could wear a turban, let alone share it with the face of an ugly, sweaty, half dead evil guy was beyond Severus.

Quirrell was beginning to look really nervous, when Filch and his oh-so-puntable cat named Mrs. Norris came up on them. Severus wondered stupidly who Mr. Norris was before realizing that Quirrell had slipped away and the moment had been ruined.

"What?" he spat, in a you-just-ruined-my-moment way.

Filch then gabbed to Severus about how someone had been in the Restricted Section of the library, while leading him up some stairs. Severus responded that whoever it was couldn't be that far, but when they didn't find anything, Severus wondered for the second time that night if Filch really was working with Quirrell, and was just causing a diversion.

However, Severus couldn't ponder much longer, for soon he felt the need to puke again rising in his gut.


	11. new year's eve

**Disclaimer: I don't own Severus obviously, or I wouldn't have to write about him/obsess over him so often. I don't own Lucius either (who would want to?) OR the storyline (well, I've fiddled with it) So there.**

It was New Year's Eve, which was a stupid date in Severus's opinion. It was also 10:30 pm. Severus decided to make that his bed time.

And he would have too, except when he got to his bed chamber, he noticed that some house elf had unmeaningly sealed his fate by DUN DUN DUN…leaving the fire on!

Severus rushed in there real quick, but to no avail.

"Severus!" said the head of loud-mouth Lucius Malfoy. "Just the man I wanted to see!"

Severus put on a smile which cramped his face to the max.

"I was wondering if you would come to the Manor for some festivities…you know, it's New Year's Day!"

Severus's eyes did a quick-as-lightning-and-hardly-noticeable scan of the room. If only house elves forgot to close windows as often as they forgot to put fires out. If only there _were _windows in this monogamous room.

Wait-didn't monogamous have something to do with marriage?

Lucius had stopped rambling on and it appeared that he was waiting for an answer.

Severus succumbed to his will, which he thought was a premium bad choice, but he liked it better than the idea of being brought to a misty graveyard where a hopelessly ugly snake man proceeded to fry him to death.

Those Malfoys.

And so, with one last longing glance back at the pack of instant oatmeal lying nearby that would have been his dinner, Severus took some floo powder and walked into the fireplace looking like a crab.

"Malfoy Manor" he said, making sure to make his words sound extra muffled.

Amazingly enough, Severus found himself in the Malfoy's fireplace, which was screened in. He also noticed that it was very squishy in there, due to the fact that Lucius was still there.

"Severus!" Lucius crowed, his face dangerously close to Severus's. Severus thought how much he hated floo powder.

Severus and Lucius just sat there for a while, squished together in the fireplace. Severus cleared his throat.

"OH YES!" Lucius said, coming to. Severus thought he could do with a curiously strong Altoid.

Lucius opened the screen after about 20 tortuous minutes of saying he'd 'got it, he'd done this a million times before.' Severus was starting to wonder if being fried to death was really _that _bad when the screen broke and he fell out of the fireplace onto the floor, which he almost kissed in joy.

Then he realized that Lucius Malfoy was still next to him and that Malfoy Manor was actually just a bigger cage.

"Now for…" Lucius paused dramatically, giving Severus ample time to realize he was talking to him. "A TOUR!"

And with that, Lucius tore up the stairs. Severus followed at what he hoped was a safe distance, trying to think whether this was the eighteenth or nineteenth tour of Malfoy Manor he had gotten.

Lucius stopped at a room with a desk in it. Like the rest of the house, it was so fancy it made Severus want to ralph. The desk had numerous papers and a pickle jar on it.

"This is my office," Lucius blared, "the pride and joy of my life." Severus thought how Lucius said that about just about everything, including his own son.

The tour took Severus through a lot of Malfoy history that, just like the Malfoys, he wished he didn't know. Lucius skipped up ahead of him, making comments like

"THAT'S my favorite towel"

"I toasted muffins in that toaster"

And "I used to slide down this banister in nothing but my stocking feet Christmas morning when all the house was asleep."

When the tour took them into the kitchen, and Severus had still not found a fire escape or trap door, Lucius closed the door and babbled to Severus in an excited tone that his non-existent wife who Severus bet he just made up not to sound like a loser and the Pointy Face Brat weren't home and so they could have a blast. He then took out some parchment.

Severus seriously wondered if they were going to do something as lame as make up resolutions. He also wondered how he was going to survive the night if Lucius didn't whip out some firewhiskey soon.

"Resolutions!" Lucius bellowed, handing Severus a piece of parchment so quick that Severus got a papercut.

Holding his bleeding finger under the table, Severus waited for the crazy guy to get on with it. But Lucius just kept staring at him, looking on the edge of his seat.

Severus cleared his throat.

"Shall we…begin?" he asked, giving Lucius a there-are-wars-to-be-stopped-and-people-to-feed-so-do-get-on-with-it look.

Lucius leaned forward.

"You mean…should we do _resolutions?" _he asked, looking ready to spaz out.

"…Yes."

"Severus old boy, that is the best idea I've ever heard!" he shouted.

"Right."

"I think we should make our resolutions this year be a joint effort."

"Of course." Severus felt his eye start to twitch, and wondered if this was how former mass murderers felt when put on the street with lots of people once more.

"The first resolution should beeeeeeeeeeee….. oh oh! I got it! Kill more muggles and mudbloods! No! Kill double the amount since this year! Yeah! Write that!"

Severus looked down at his parchment and wrote

_Get Lucius off Prozac. _

"Oh! Here's another one!" Lucius bellowed. "Ready…okay…torture more house elves!"

Severus paused and then added

_Then find out where he's been getting it._

After a painful hour of having his hearing permanently damaged and wanting desperately to kill something, Severus was rewarded when Lucius opened up a secret compartment labeled "SECRET COMPARTMENT" and took out some firewhiskey.

There were ten bottles.

Severus decided that maybe this night could get a little more manageable.

Severus grabbed a bottle and quaffed it down, and was starting on the second when he started to giggle and choked on that fiery stuff. He then glared at the narrator for using words like 'quaffed' and 'giggled' hence making his drink go down the wrong pipe.

Lucius took the drinks and went into the next room. Naturally, Severus followed. Thus followed the stupidest few games of wizard chess Severus had ever played, except he didn't really care that much. Lucius kept doing 'new maneuvers' like 'quadruple skips' and 'bowling' which was where he knocked all of Severus's men within a four inch radius out. Those chess games made Severus start reminiscing about his school days in the Slytherin common room when Lucius would have him do his homework in exchange for a game of wizard chess in which Lucius always cheated, but beat him up if he tried to do the same.

By the time Severus had reached for his sixth firewhiskey, it was the middle of game number blah-de-blah. Lucius, who had had four, was smiling crookedly at him.

Severus crawled across the chess board, stood up, and walked over to a chair, grinning from ear to ear.

"Goodbye, come back for more," Lucius said in a slurred voice, a lot less hyper than before.

Severus backed up and fell backwards over the chair, breaking a glass sculpture of a snake.

"Ha ha, snake," Severus giggled.

"Hey," Lucius said, sounding like he was trying to be angry. From Severus's position on the floor, Lucius looked like an evil tooth fairy. Severus cracked up. Lucius muttered some words that started with "don't you dare" and ended with "gluestick."

Severus took off his socks and shoes and tried to stand up, only to fall down again and again, giggling insanely and singing 'happy birthday to you' between breaths. Lucius grabbed Severus and heaved him upright. "Did I ever tell you how beautiful you really are?" Severus jabbered. Lucius looked touched, in a bizarre and drunken way. Severus stumbled to the nearby stairs leading downwards, and waved at Dobby who was coming up them. Severus saw that elf's eyes widen before he lost his balance and fell. The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was a kid's voice. "Professor Snape?"

**a/n: I'm really sorry that I haven't updated in so long, but I had a weird kind of writer's block on this story, and you can't say YOU haven't gotten that (or maybe you can…) Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and please review! **


	12. in which reffing is a bad choice

**a/n: okay, so originally this chapter was going to be much longer, but I decided to split it in two. Which means the next chapter is already partially written. Of course, many of you are probably aghast at the fact that I'm updating this now, when I haven't for almost a complete YEAR. Surprises happen every day, people :) **

Well, you may have thought that New Year's Eve would've been Severus's worst day that year, but if you did, you need to keep in mind that things could always get worse. Severus thought this highly likely, judging from an experienced stance. He was right.

A little after Christmas vaca, as Severus saw it written loads of times (though he didn't think 'vaca' was good for student vocab.) something bad happened. That bad thing was that Severus was being a ref. The worse-than-that-previously-mentioned-bad-thing was that Severus had put himself in this folly.

The aforementioned folly had taken place on a fine and unsuspecting Tuesday morn, whilst Severus was crunching on a dry piece of toast. Dumbledore had suggested that he kindly sit next to him at breakfast. Severus sensed something fishy coming, but couldn't do much about it.

"Severus, I would like to make a request which I am sure you will have no trouble carrying out," said Dumbledore. Severus knew that meant "Do whatever I want or I'll lower your pay to that of a peasant", so he put his toast down and stared at that man, trying to look eager. It didn't work.

"Now, as I'm sure you know, the big game for our new Gryffindor seeker is coming up."

Severus expected more to come, but when Dumbledore kept staring at him expectantly he decided it was time for an icebreaker.

"Gryffindor versus who?" he asked uninterestedly.

"Hufflepuff."

Severus choked on his toast and had to get emergency care. Unfortunately, Dumbledore followed him to the hospital wing where he pretended to be concerned before falling into a moment of silence. Severus knew he was getting ready to pop the big one. He wished he would hurry up before he blacked out.

"Severus, I would like you to act as referee for this next match." Dumbledore then blabbered on about how he wanted to make sure Potter-who-takes-too-much-maintenance didn't get jinxed again, and how he himself would not likely make it to the game because of some lousy lunch date.

Severus started to say that he didn't feel comfortable with this plan, and that he already knew who was causing the trouble anyway, so maybe these steps weren't completely necessary.

"Who was it Severus?" Dumbledore asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Quirrell," Severus said excitedly, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "I have sufficient reason to believe that he is after the Sorcerer's stone behind your back---

"Hmm, do you think so, Severus?" Dumbledore asked, not believing him. "Oops, look at the time! I have to go confer with Minerva, she'll be wondering where I am. Well, I had better go. Have fun with that refereeing job, it'll do you a world of good. Thank you for complying, Severus. I knew I could count on you."

And with that, he left the hospital wing in a rush of merriment.

"Here, let me take your temperature," Madame Pomfrey said randomly. Severus felt like an indentured servant.

That night, Severus revised his lesson plan to include approximately 3 lbs. of homework every night, which the exception of 6 lbs. on Friday. Then he took some Advil and had cold porridge for dinner.

Severus lay in bed for two hours, making snort sounds and rolling over repeatedly. Finally, he got up and made a caricature of Dumbledore to vent his frustration, and ended up falling asleep at his desk.


	13. in which pointless suffering abounds

**a/n: I realize that I have not updated this thing for like a year. There is no excuse for this madness.**

The day of being a ref came sooner than Severus had precipitated (wait, didn't precipitation have something to do with rain?) He was mortally dreading it.

"Severus!" Madame Hooch screeched in a super-scary voice as he plodded into her pathetic excuse for an office.

"I am mortally dreading this," Severus informed her, sitting down stiffly.

Madame Hooch walked over to a wardrobe and took out a ghastly striped suit. Severus didn't recall any other refs having to wear suits.

Indeed, as he reported to her after changing into the stupid thing, Madame Hooch was smiling rather evilly at him, as if she were trying to keep a case of the ha-has from springing up. Severus seriously hated her.

A while later, Severus was hovering on his broom out on the Quidditch pitch, trying to concentrate on not looking down. His broomophobia was coming back worse than ever. As the players flew onto the field, he chanced to look up into the stands in time to see Dumbledore sit down next to some professor that didn't matter, chatting away.

Severus stared at Dumbledore, mouth agape, but Dumbledore was too busy looking for something in his beard to notice. Severus imagined the only person as generally POed as he was right now was Dumbledore's lunch date. He assumed a facial expression which clearly said he was holding a lot of mean in.

"Those aren't real reff robes," Professor Sprout said bossily from behind him.

Severus turned around and ripped a decorative Hufflepuff flag off of the balcony where she sat.

There was a shocked, angry silence. Severus ripped two more flags off . Far below on the Quidditch pitch, Filch was flipping out over all the litter.

The quaffle flew past Severus's head and he realized that the game had been going on for a while now. Madame Hooch had obviously been neglecting her whistling duties. Severus turned away from Professor Sprout's territory and flew a short distance back and forth to look like he was doing something. The stadium was very loud and he had "Go Go Gryffindor", the smash hit from last game, stuck in his head.

A random red-hair Weasley hit a bludger at Severus, who swerved just in time and hit a wall. Trying not to look at Professor Sprout, he awarded Hufflepuff a penalty in the face of the random red-hair attack. The random red-hair Weasley looked scornful. Severus didn't know what he expected.

Severus spent most of the rest of the game skirting around the boundaries slowly on his unsteady broom. Every once in a while, when no one was looking, he would tear a paper flag and put on a burst of speed to the corner of the field in muffled laughter. Three Gryffindor flags and five Hufflepuff flags were down and no one seemed to notice but Filch, who was on the verge of a heart attack. This seemed to be the longest Quidditch game there ever was. He wondered if there were a way to speed this thing up.

"PENALTY TO HUFFLEPUFF!" Severus made up, mixing it up a little. He was coming around from his fifth lap of the field. This game was a drag. Suddenly the Pointy-Face Brat leaned out of a stand that Severus swore hadn't been there before, and started saying words in a very high volume. A second later however, the Weasley and the boy Severus bet he could beat up decided to pile on top of the Pointy-Face Brat, so that ended that.

Severus turned around again and got a mouthful of Potter-the-quite-frankly-unexpected's Quidditch robes as that crazy hooligan came flying right at him. Severus was starting to get a feeling that someone out here wanted him dead. He scanned the bleachers squintily, and saw Dumbledore grinning way too huge for comfort. A second later, everyone started yelling that Potter-the-somewhat-irrelevant had caught the Snitch. Severus seriously wondered if that was an entirely necessary thing to point out.

Suddenly a swarm of Gryffindors came charging onto the field, and Severus made a quick-fast landing, shoving his broom back at a startled Madame Hooch.

"Now wait a minute!" she hooted in a disgruntled manner.

Severus's mouth tasted like gym locker. He spit out a piece of lint on the ground.

"Litter, litter, vandalism," blustered Filch, chugging scarily over to him. Severus ran for it. He only stopped momentarily next to a strained looking Quirrell standing on the outskirts of the Hogwarts grounds.

"Meet me at inconspicuous o' clock p.m. in the Forbidden Forest," he hissed bossily. "We need to have a bit of a talk."

Quirrell looked frightened and confused. He opened his mouth to say something but Severus shushed him and hurried inside. One of his feet was an ache and pain. He could only presume it was the Fluffy foot, acting up again.

Severus ran down the dungeon stairs pretending he was a stunt man and skipping steps every once in a while. Stripping off his ridiculous referee outfit, he found a bonus coupon inside one of the pockets for a free sundae at Florean Fortesque's ice cream parlor in Diagon Alley.

_Score_ Severus thought numbly, pulling on his robes with Extra Cape Attachments. Wrapping his cape around him, he ran all the way out to the grounds again, concentrating on not running into anything. Feeling like a dementor, Severus stopped on the edge of the Forbidden Forest and proceeded with caution. Something moved to the left of him, and Severus froze. A minute later, however, he unfroze, realizing that it was only Hagrid. Severus briefly wondered what kind of person wanders around in the back of their own house after dark before continuing.

Severus finally found Quirrell standing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest with his back to him. By now he was covered with twigs and panting a bit.

Severus asked his back what part of "edge" of the forest it didn't understand. Something moved past them in the mist. It looked suspiciously like a werewolf. Quirrell turned around real quick, almost falling over.

"Oh, S-Severus, what a s-s-surprise!"

Severus stared at him.

"Quirrell, I told you to meet me here, what exactly is surprising about that?"

"W-well, I d-don't know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus," Quirrell said, changing the subject.

"Oh, I thought we'd keep this private. Students aren't supposed to know about the Sorcerer's Stone after all."

Quirrell muttered something about it really being the Philosopher's Stone, but they changed it for the U.S. because Americans don't understand philosophy.

_Dude, whatever _Severus thought. Quirrell was clearly determined to get off the subject. Severus had already determined that he would like to get to bed before Christmas. _Moving on._

"Have you figured out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?" he asked quickly, staring around for a minute to make sure Hagrid hadn't in fact gotten so lost in back of his house that he wandered farther out and took the mention of his name as an invitation to join them.

"B-b-but Severus, I— Quirrell blathered.

_Blablablabla bla. _

"You don't want me as your enemy Quirrell," he said through gritted teeth, moving forward in an attempt to herd Quirrell into a tree.

"I-I don't know what you-

"You know perfectly well what I mean. And in case you forgot, I know that you are the host of an evil dark lord trying to come back to power by way of the Sorcerer's SLASH Philosopher's stone. And ALSO," Severus breathed triumphantly, "Relatively soon the Headmaster will listen to me about this, so you might as well cough up and tell me about your little bit of hocus pocus. I'm waiting."

"B-but I d-d-don't---

"Very well," Severus said, annoyed. "We'll have another little chat soon, when you've had enough time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie." He gave Quirrell a significant, I'm-watching-you type of look which lacked the hand motions because his cape would so totally fall off if he did that. Then he flung his cloak dramatically over his head and left the scene, so to speak.

Severus was clambering out of the woods, and Quirrell apparently wasn't following him because he wanted some quiet time alone in the woods. Severus hoped something ate him, which would solve the problem nicely.

That was when a not-too-nice smell hit Severus's nostrils. A minute later, he stumbled over a motionless lump on the ground. It turned out to be a dead unicorn. He was about to get up and leave this mess behind when Hagrid came galumphing over.

"I suggest you look into that," Severus told him, pointing to the dead unicorn.

"Blimey," Hagrid rumbled, not bothering to help Severus up. Instead, he bent over the unicorn, looking for who knows what. Severus had a revelation about the matter, and was about to tell Hagrid that oh please it was so obvious how that thing died, but then decided that leaving it a mystery would give Hagrid enough subject matter to trouble over for a good length of time. Plus Hagrid wouldn't get to asking why Severus had been out in the woods instead of going to dinner anyway.

So it was that Severus did a tick check behind the east parapet of the castle, before going inside and falling asleep thinking about Quirrell-unicorn parallels.

In the middle of the night, Severus woke up to hear Professor Flitwick stumbling drunkenly around on the floor above. He waited patiently for these sounds to desist, but when an hour had passed, Severus became suspicious that there was a staff party somewhere nearby, and took some Benedril.

The second time Severus woke up in the middle of the night, it was because his alarm spontaneously went off, blasting "Can You Do the Hippogriff" by the Weird Sisters ultra loud.

Severus jumped so bad that he knocked down a pickled lizard spleen in a jar on the shelf above his bed and had to _reparo_ it. Deciding he was not going to get sleep sometime this night, Severus took to roaming the halls above. The staff party had ended, and Flitwick was lying passed out in a doorway. Filch was leaning over him, muttering wheezily about litter.

Severus wandered around for only half an hour though, because Phineas Nigellus kept following him through all the pictures, asking "about that tea party". Finally, Severus locked himself in the staff room to get away, and fell asleep.


	14. in which insanity is evident

Severus was rudely awakened the very next morning by some incredibly loud snorts. As his eyes got everything into focus, he realized that something was seriously wrong. Not only was he in the staff room, lying on the floor, but Hagrid was passing by in the hallway with something loud and snortish in his pocket.

Severus attempted to get up, but he had been hit with a jelly legs jinx, and flopped ridiculously back to the floor. Flitwick was standing in front of him, looking embarrassed and a bit hung over.

"_Do_ explain this," Severus said irritably, kicking his jelly legs around. They got further entangled in his robes. Woe.

"I thought you were an intruder," Flitwick said in one loud squeak. "The staff room door was locked."

Severus winced, put his fingers in his ears, and asked Flitwick irrelevant questions while he waited for the effects to wear off.

Severus ended up waiting longer than he expected. McGonagall came in for a coffee break, and he pulled himself under the table real quick. There was a creak as she sat down in a chair and took off her shoes. Severus was pretty sure that that particular action was unnecessary. He was also pretty sure that he had missed his first class.

Severus ended up waiting for another hour in the staff room, because McGonagall took too-long coffee breaks. Every ten minutes she would chuckle deeply about nothing in particular, and stretch her legs, so that Severus had to scrunch up real far to the other side of the table. He wished he had an invisibility cloak like Potter-who-thinks-nobody-knows-he-has-one.

As soon as McGonagall left the staff room (she did a groan that made Severus jump when she stood up), Severus scooted out from under the table and beamed it out of there just in time—Professor Flitwick was coming in to see if there was any left over firewhiskey from the night before.

Severus stood panting in the hall, trying to stiffen his upper lip or whatever. Hagrid passed again with the gruntish thing in his pocket, and Severus had the keen suspicion that the man was pacing for reasons unknown to him. He did not have time to tell Hagrid to Cut That Out, however, because he was late to his second class of the day.

Severus ran down to the dungeons, expecting supreme vandalism, and was surprised to find that his first class was still packing up to go. Severus swept into the room and sat down at his desk. Everyone stared at him. Severus pretended to be correcting papers.

"Um…Professor Snape?" said a tentative voice.

"Do questions 1 through 12, page 352," Severus snapped at the voice. He realized that that homework very probably didn't exist, but they were Ravenclaws and could use some extra research. Slowly, everyone started to leave.

When the claustrophobic nightmare had left the dungeon, Severus took some instant oatmeal out of a drawer and was in the process of transferring that stuff to a bowl when he heard a bunch of insistent hooting at his door.

"What the—?" Severus muttered, doing a pained face. Some uncooperative oats scattered across his desk. He went over to the door to admit a frazzled looking owl into the room. The owl hooted weakly and coughed up a huge ass note.

Ignoring the owl's strangled hooting, Severus sat down in a chair with the note and unfolded it. It was on a large piece of construction paper, and simply said, in large letters:

"SEVERUS,

PLEASE COME TO MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE"

Severus stared at that note for a good two minutes. It was only when he realized that

his teeth were grinding together rather unpleasantly AND

the deranged school owl was choking on his oatmeal

that he snapped out of it.

Feeling more than slightly annoyed, Severus went down the hallways to Dumbledore's office, going as slow as was humanly possible. At one point, a large crowd of first years who were obviously still fixated on raw spaghetti lines from primary school got stuck behind him, and he had to be all snarly at them twice to get them to go around him.

An hour later, Severus came to the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office, and mumbled various stupid food items at it. Thinking that something fishy was going on around here, Severus climbed the stairs to Dumbledore's office. Halfway up, he ran into Quirrell the Obviously Evil.

"Oh, h-hello S-Severus," Quirrell blabbered at him. "I j-just had a m-m-meeting with P-Professor Dumbled-d-dore. He g-gave me a p-p-packet of info on h-how to g-get past the obstacles in front of th-the st-stone."

Severus stared.

"Give me that," he snapped, reaching for the packet.

Quirrell ran.

A minute later, Severus fell through Dumbledore's office door and stormed over to his desk.

"You…just…gave…Quirrell the way to the stone!"

Dumbledore just gave him a twinkly-eye look.

"No I did not, Severus. That packet is missing the last page. It is somewhat of a brain teaser, I figure. Plus, there is an excellent crossword on page four. Quirrell only felt left out because he didn't get to do his part in guarding it. I figure all the teachers should know _something._ Lemon drop?"

Severus stared.

"Headmaster," he ground out, "it is clear that Quirrell is trying to steal the stone."

"Now, Severus, I think it is time that you and Professor Quirrell laid your old differences aside."

"We met this year."

"Back to the business at hand. You must revise your part in guarding the stone. I believe that no one will be able to guess which potion does which if you do not supply them with some hints."

Severus gave Dumbledore a what-the-hell look.

"Do you WANT someone to get the stone?" he asked.

"Everyone enjoys poetry," Dumbledore said, quite off the subject.

"So…you wish me to _write a poem?_"

"If that's what you see fit. You wrote quite excellent emo poetry in third year, if I remember correctly."

Severus entertained a brief fantasy in which Dumbledore choked on his lemon drop.

"Fine," he snapped. Fawkes made a warbling sound from nearby. Severus felt like he was slowly dying from the inside. Then again, Dumbledore's office usually had that effect on him.

Dumbledore began to knit some wool socks, and no amount of huffy breaths from Severus could make him desist.

When Severus stepped out of Dumbledore's office, he ran into Hagrid, who was making his billionth round of the castle. The gruntish thing was still in his pocket.

"Praytell what is that thing?" Severus said, clutching his head like he had a headache. Hagrid looked furtive.

"It's…erm…nothin'," Hagrid rumbled, in a way that told Severus it totally was something. Severus started to say something more, but Hagrid sped away down the hall, rather faster than Severus had known he could move.

When Severus got back to the dungeons, his classroom was a royal mess. The school owl had died from the oatmeal in its throat, and was lying near the bowl, which had evidently been upturned in its death struggle. Severus put the thing in a drawer, and sat at his desk with his head in his hands. A loud murmur outside his door informed Severus that his next class was here, waiting in a cooked spaghetti line outside his door. Severus got up, walked over to the door, locked it, and went into his office where he wrote a poem about potions guarding the stone. He made sure to put lots of words in it that Quirrell wouldn't know, unless he had a Thesaurus, and Severus was pretty darn sure they didn't sell those at the Hogwarts gift shop.


	15. in which exams are a happening thing

**Disclaimer: I keep forgetting to do these every once in a while, so here it is! I don't own Severus (damn...) or the story (which I'm actually glad for, because being JKR would be rather pressuring at least occasionally) Once again, I don't even own about fifty percent of the spoken lines in this chapter, seeing as this is a paralleling parody type deal. K. 'Nough said.**

It was a week later or something, and it was time for exams. Severus loved exams, because they meant no classes to teach plus low stress levels. All he had to do was walk around and stare at people's potions, stopping every once in a while to write on his Made in China pad, which had been a bonus freebie from the staff room this week. Usually Severus just waited for some kid to mess up so he could put a zero in one of the little boxes next to the Sort of Unnecessary requirements he made up.

The first kid of the day came in. It was the Finnegan, Gryffindor's trademark Irish kid. Severus only remembered his name because he liked to call on him and hear his accent. He wondered why the hell that kid hadn't waited at the door instead like they did every freaking day, and so why should exams be any different? The kid went to the far corner of the classroom, and sat down at the gray cauldron. Severus marked him off five points. That bulky thing was a pain to clean, and he always tried to put it at the seat no one would sit at.

There was still some time before the exam started, so Severus swept over to his corner and moved a loose stone when the kid wasn't looking. Water started to drip annoyingly down next to the Finnegan, but the freak seemed to like it.

When exam time came around, Severus ceased glaring at the Finnegan to go open the door. Not surprisingly, the Bush Hair was first in line, then the boy he bet he could beat up, then some Traditional Filler Kids, the Pointy-Face Brat and his cronies. Severus started to shut the door, when Potter-who-always-comes-to-class-at-the-last-second and the ever faithful Weasley came puffing dramatically through.

Severus spent a large part of the exam period walking behind the kid he bet he could beat up repeatedly, which seemed to make him do weird things, like spill his ingredients about a thousand times. Severus wrote "Butterfingers" on his notes, which reminded him how there had been that kind of candy bar stuck in the staff room candy machine for like forever. Professors Sinistra and Vector had been sending Professor Binns through the machine just that morning to get it out, but Severus seriously thought they had forgotten that ghosts couldn't pick things up, so they shouldn't yell at the guy like that.

It was getting very misty in the dungeons, which brought Severus's mind back to the ever-present issue of ventilation. Potter-with-clearly-no-clue kept shifting the ingredients for the Forgetfulness Potion around on his desk, and Severus privately thought he was getting nowhere real fast.

Taking to doing laps through the isles, Severus had to take an alternative route when he saw something really gross and it was apparent that there was cleanup on isle three needed. The fumes made him sleepy after awhile, and when the bell finally rang, he realized he had been spaced out on some kid's potion for who knows how long. The kid was totally freaking out anyway.

Severus took his next period, which was free of exams, to take the exam grades for the day up to Dumbledore. The halls were really quiet, and he only passed one random lost first year, and Filch, who was doing something really weird next to a suit of armor. When he saw Severus, he walked away really fast. Severus ventured into the corner he had deserted, but all he found was a lingering odor of ham and cheese.

When Severus got up to Dumbledore's office, there was no one there, except a really urgent owl, hooting and bugging the crap out of Fawkes, who finally owned up and burst into flames. Severus walked over to the desk and stared at the note there. It was about the dumbest note he had ever read.

**Dear Professor Dumbledore,**

**Come immediately to the Ministry! If you want your prize money in full for the weekly Why I Like Socks catalog, you will come quickely!**

**Corneelius Fudge**

Severus stared at that thing, and wondered why he had ever worried about Quirrell understanding his poem when the guy clearly had such spelling and syntax issues. He also wondered for the millionth time what Dumbledore was smoking.

Looking around, Severus decided to kill some time by looking through Dumbledore's stuff. He found some play doh, lemon drops, and a picture frame with the original insert of a kid smiling near some trees still intact. Next, Severus picked the lock of a secret looking drawer and found a stapler. He put the lemon drops in with it before locking it again, and silently laughed about that for a while, before going over to watch a baby Fawkes being reborn before he left.

Out in the hall once more, Severus ran into Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stack of books and looking highly pristine.

"Severus!" she honked, so loud that he got a headache. "How did you feel exams went?"

"As well as they ever have, Minerva," Severus said, taking the option of being as vague as possible.

McGonagall nodded like this was the answer she had always expected, and thankfully passed him by.

Severus decided to go to the staffroom for a bagel, and spotted a mysterious clump in the hall from afar. Coming up behind the clump, he noticed that it was Potter-the-extremely-sketchy and his almost equally questionable cohorts. Severus didn't think he had ever seen Potter-who-should-be-outside-right-now with any other kids, and seriously wondered whether the kid's friend- making skills had just stopped right there, so to speak.

As Severus got closer, the Bush Hair gave a loud, rather too dramatic gasp, and stared at him. The Weasley and Potter-who-is-slow-on-the-uptake turned around real fast. Severus thought their secret gang mission attitude was about the lamest thing ever, though he did wish they hadn't seen him for a while yet. He wanted to get close enough to figure out whether they were speaking in code yet or what.

"Good afternoon," Severus said smirkily.

Potter-the-generally-pissed-off stared at him.

Severus was beginning to think this was a very amusing scenario he had here.

"You shouldn't be inside on a day like this," he told them.

Potter-the-overly-redundant started to reel out what he could tell would be a lengthy bit of blab, so Severus just talked over him.

"You want to be more careful. Hanging around like this, people will think you're up to something. And Gryffindor really can't afford to lose any more points, can it?"

Potter-the-inarticulate just turned a reddish color, and turned to leave with his ever-silent crew, but Severus called him back to deliver a nicely worded threat of expulsion that he had just thought up, then went to get his bagel.

When Severus got to the staffroom, he noticed that the bagel basket was running low, and that people had taken all the good kinds. Only the crusty ones from the day before were left. Severus made a softly annoyed sound through his nose, and took a knife to one. He practically had to saw the thing to get any leeway, and while he was doing that, Professor Flitwick used the excuse that he was a half goblin and therefore handicapped to take the last cream cheese.

Severus finally got the job done, turned around, and noticed in mid-bite of his very hard bagel that Quirrell had just walked by outside.

Severus knew immediately where he was going. Dropping his bagel, he started for the door, and noticed something that was a definite head-scratcher. The Bush Hair was standing very stiff outside the staffroom door against the wall, staring in front of her. The Weasley and Potter-who-is-possibly-in-league-with-Quirrell were nowhere to be found. Severus spent a good few minutes watching the Bush Hair to see if she would move. She didn't. Severus went outside to interrupt her trance.

The Bush Hair jumped about a mile when she saw him come out.

"And praytell, _what _are you doing, Miss Granger?" he asked smoothly.

The Bush Hair looked petrified, and babbled that she needed to see Professor Flitwick. Severus gave her a very weird look, and looked over his shoulder at Flitwick, who was getting to work spreading cream cheese on his crackers.

Flitwick didn't look up when Severus came over to him. He obviously thought being short excused him from having manners.

"Filius," Severus said pointedly. "There is a student at the door who would like to talk to you." Then, "I must say, I don't envy you her company."

"Alright then," Flitwick said, still not looking at him. Severus was noticing this common behavior in a lot of the staff lately, ever since the last Quidditch match in fact. No one but McGonagall talked to him anymore, and he honestly wished she would just restrain herself as well because that would save him a lot of headaches.

When Flitwick left, Severus took his cream cheese and put some of it on his bagel, then returned it hoping that he wouldn't notice the depletion. As he put it back on the table, he noticed that Flitwick was already coming back inside. He jumped, and put the cream cheese down real fast, sincerely hoping that it had originally been on the left of Flitwick's crackers. Flitwick looked extremely angry, and for a second Severus thought he might have seen that devious transaction, until the guy started talking.

"Snape," he said, "I'm glad you think it's funny to waste my time by making me run all over the place on false errands. Well, haha, it most certainly is _not_. Just like it's not funny to referee Quidditch matches just because you're a sore loser and don't want anyone to win but Slytherin." He sat down all huffy at the table and looked flustered for a second, before picking up a cracker and biting it with a vengeance. Severus stared at the crazy guy, before going to take a gander outside, so to speak. The Bush Hair was nowhere to be found.

Figuring it would be a waste of breath to attempt to explain anything to Flitwick, Severus left him to wreak havoc on his crackers and went out on a trip to the third floor instead. At least now he knew why people weren't talking to him around this cretaceous place.

Wait—wasn't cretaceous a period of dinosaurs or something? Severus put it on his agenda to ask Professor Binns, who was probably part dinosaur anyway, and continued on the trek upstairs.


	16. in which quirrell makes some moves

**a/n: Okay , so a sort of timely fashion here. I do realize this story has been ongoing for about three years, so I really appreciate everyone who's stuck with it. :)**

Later that same stale afternoon, Severus reached the Fluffy door on the third floor. It was open, and Fluffy was quite frankly flipping out.

Severus had to strain himself to let that one slide. He knew Quirrell was a bit low on goods in a few departments, but perhaps he would have to minus some IQ points from that guy's file all the same, so to speak.

Fluffy was bellowing so much that Severus seriously wondered if there was a plot deficiency in this story, like how could this not wake up the whole castle? He also wondered whether three-head slobber dogs could lose their voice, because he was feeling a migraine coming on real fast.

Severus looked in on that ruckus, and saw a flute lying on the ground, except Fluffy kept kicking it around, and soon it fell into the open trap door nearby. But that was not even the interesting part. The interesting part was that Severus spotted something very suspicious and painfully obvious at once. It was Potter-the-clinically-insane's invisibility cloak, lying all crumpled on the floor.

Severus thought it was rather easy to deduce what had happened here. Potter-who-knows-only-like-three-spells had made it a genuine cluefinder mission of following Quirrell down there, where he would likely be ripped to shreds. Under normal circumstances, Severus would have thought that to be some quality comic material right there, but now he was mostly thinking about how Dumbledore took really long trips to London.

He was wondering just _when_ that guy would figure out there was no sock catalog, when Fluffy fell down sleeping. Severus was thinking "how random could you get?" when he noticed that there was definite music coming from the trap door. A moment later, none other than the Bush Hair appeared, carrying the oh—so-earlier fallen flute. Feeling faintly ridiculous, Severus hid himself behind a suit of armor, and waited for results. Sure enough, the Bush Hair came out of there, walking real fast and looking close to tears. She only stopped to close the door behind her and look around. No one else was with her.

Severus put his problem solving skills to the test and figured that he might not be seeing any more of Potter-who-wanders-around-in-his-invisibility-cloak-twice-a-month, unless it was at a funeral put on by a charity in which the proceeds went to something nice. Or whatever.

Fluffy started making growly sounds spontaneously once more, and Severus underwent a brief period of angst in which he thought of Voldemort being immortal. It was not a good thought. Going on what he remembered of the guy, he liked to bring out a whole lot of irrelevant family drama to prove a lot of obscure points while his peer pressured followers sat around boiling to death under sweaty masks.

Sweaty but sort of cool looking. Credit where credit is due, and all that.

But now , sitting woefully behind a suit of armor, Severus found himself considering options like spontaneously falling asleep, eating something before he fainted from his lack of anything but Piece of Bagel, and, stupidly, of actually going down there after Quirrell to duke it out. He genuinely wondered how Voldemort was going to get anywhere fast with that stone, when all he was was a face on the back of some other spaceball's head.

_We shall see, _Severus thought dramatically, and he formulated a plan to open the Fluffy door and sneak in there and grab the invisibility cloak as he did not have any musical instruments on him. Severus stood by the door doing several deep cleansing yoga breaths, before throwing it open on its hinges.

Only all that was totally void and unnecessary, because Fluffy had gotten his foot stuck in the trap door below him, and was howling up a storm. Shutting the door good and firm, Severus wondered how Hagrid felt about euthanasia.

"Severus!"

Severus made a gack sound in the back of his throat, and turned around to find a slightly out of breath Dumbledore taking a rapid approach to the Fluffy door.

"Professor Dumbledore— Severus began in an effort to inform him of the clog, but Dumbledore did the scariest face Severus had ever seen on a guy with a beard, so he canned it.

Dumbledore reached the door, and turned to face him.

"Severus, this is very important," he said gravely. "I have found out that someone is trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone at this very moment. That someone is Professor Quirrell."

Apparently, Dumbledore took the look on Severus's face to be one of surprise, because he went on.

"I know, I know. None of us could have foreseen this. It is lucky perhaps that my tea tasted strange on the trip over to London, because all of a sudden, my mind turned to other strange things, and it came to me like that."

"Unbelievable," Severus said flatly.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Yes, yes, I thought so too. Well, Harry and his friends have gone down after Quirrell, no doubt in an attempt to thwart him. I must go down there and help him out, but in the meantime, don't tell anyone what is going on. I made sure no one saw me come into Hogwarts again, and I would rather they still think I'm in London because yadayadaya…."

Here Severus spaced out, staring at the door behind Dumbledore and trying to keep from grinding his teeth together. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the guy had finally stopped flapping his trap, and was now standing there, serenely polishing his glasses on his robes.

Severus gave him a pointed stare, but Dumbledore appeared to be in lala land, so to speak, and kept right on scrubbing those specs.

Severus cleared his throat.

Dumbledore looked up and smiled at him, then went right back to work.

"Professor, do you not have to…" Severus began.

Dumbledore looked up. His eyes widened and he bolted through the Fluffy door, almost catching his way-too-long white hair in the crack when he shut it again.

Severus stood by the door for a good while, half relieved and half wanting to kill something. Then, vaguely wondering how Dumbledore was dealing with getting Fluffy's foot out of the trap door, he walked downstairs, and through some hallways, trying not to step on the cracks in the stone.

When Severus came to the general area of the entrance hall, he realized that the students were no longer outside anymore, and stopped that enchanting activity immediately, cutting through the riff raff impatiently.

There was a major hold up at the entrance to the Great Hall, so Severus leaned against a wall feeling claustrophobic and mildly disgusted, and eavesdropped on two snot nose Ravenclaw kids talking smack about some girl named Linda, and how she wouldn't talk to them. Severus thought that if he were some girl named Linda, he wouldn't talk to them either.

After about fifteen more grueling minutes of hallway drama, Severus was able to make a break for it. Sprinting into the Great Hall, he grabbed a cold piece of toast for lunch and sat at the staff table, which was thankfully mostly empty. McGonagall, who was getting up to leave, gave him a look that clearly said "I found out Slytherin is winning the house cup and I feel that it is your fault my house doesn't keep normal bed times." Severus didn't think it wise to tell her that two of her house members might actually be developing rigor mortis at the moment.

As the afternoon wore on, Severus received some news of a staff meeting, and arrived in the staff room to find Dumbledore standing beaming at everyone in the general area.

"Voldemort— Severus jumped at the name, then scowled at the random teacher next to him, who was smirking. "—has come back, it seems," Dumbledore said. There was a collective hush, then Dumbledore bubbled on about how Potter-the-fairweather-friend had let the Weasley get clobbered by a large chess piece before going on to face the Dark Lord. Severus had to bite down on his lip to keep from laughing at that bit of info.

Dumbledore talked on and on. Professor Sinistra who Severus seriously suspected of never actually teaching a class was picking at a tossed salad next to him, and dropped a leaf on the ground. Hagrid, who Severus was 100 sure was not a staff member, was standing in a corner bawling his eyes out very loud and obnoxious, and repeating "s'all me fault, blablablubberblubber I tol' him how to gepast Fluhhuhhuffy…blubber blubber." Severus wished Dumbledore would just give him a bathroom pass or something, because really. This room couldn't take another sob story.

Then Professor McGonagall started talking about how Potter-the-lacking-in-primary-thought-processes had been trying to warn her beforehand. Her voice was all crisp and totally not appropriate for the atmosphere. When she sat back down again, she gave Severus an unnecessary penetrating stare. He stared back at her and mouthed the house point totals at her.

After Dumbledore had talked for a time equivalent to the length of his beard, he beamed them all with his twinkly eye gaze, which on the outside looks like a "I'm your grandpa figure in this life, son, confide in me" type deal, but which Severus really knew to be a "Submit to my superior knowledge or I will unhinge my jaw and eat you alive" type of deal. Plus interest.

Five minutes later, they wrapped this one-time-only event up by way of Dumbledore saying that they had Potter-the-currently-hospitalized to thank for the safety of the school and the disappearance of the Dark Lord, and that they should probably write him thank you notes and think of him every time they cut into their roast turkey here at Hogwarts.

Severus left the meeting with something that tasted like bile in his mouth, and for some reason his pillow felt lumpy that night, so he didn't fall asleep until oh-dark-thirty.


	17. happy endings are never for everyone

Severus woke up a few mornings later from a recurring nightmare in which Dumbledore had been trying to bludgeon him with the same giant chess piece that had massacred the Weasley. As usual, he woke up smelling lemon drops everywhere.

Severus wiped some sweat from his face and thought how today was the goodbye feast or whatever. Except he really hated that thing, and wished that staff members didn't have to go.

It was only in the middle of putting on the same robes he wore every day that Severus realized that today would be the day Slytherin was recognized for winning the House Cup, which was a juicy good thought.

Severus spent most of the day wandering around the halls because he had no classes to teach. Also, he gave a Hufflepuff kid a detention which made Professor Sprout blackmail him with a bunch of empty threats.

When it was time to go up to the end of year feast, Severus tripped over a fig plant someone had opportunistically left in front of his door. After examining that dratted thing for a good three minutes, he noticed that

it smelled heavily of mulch AND

The word "Trelawney" was visible under a whole mess of crossed out stuff on the attached note card.

Trying to clear his mind of that incident, Severus went up to the Great Hall, where he noticed that Dumbledore had ODed on the décor, which made him vaguely wonder whether the guy was trying to make up for something else. Not that he wasn't overly psyched and grateful for the huge ass Slytherin snake plastered on the wall next to him, but really, with that thing staring at him he might get indigestion before he even started to eat. And speaking of eating, Severus was totally game for some beef casserole.

"You can sit next to me, Severus," said a raucous voice that nearly split his left eardrum in two. Severus didn't even need to look to know who that was.

"I'm a good sport about losing," Minerva McGonagall went on, while Severus bent down to check that the chair next to her had all four legs. Finally, he screwed up his face and sat down. Nothing happened, so he went to waiting for Dumbledore to get on with this thing.

Finally, Dumbledore walked into the feast ten minutes late, which Severus thought was just dandy, because everyone was getting really hungry here, and so what was the excuse for this? Dumbledore then said a lot of run-on sentences, and began to tell them the house point totals. Gryffindor was in last place. Severus looked over at McGonagall, all sneer-like. The loon was smiling, which honestly made him more than a little creeped out.

The Slytherin table was flipping out. The Pointy-Face Brat was banging his goblet on the table so hard that the plates were jumping around. Severus personally felt that the kid needed to learn the value of time out in a dark room. Nearby, Crabbe had received one yowcher of a splinter, and was making it worse by rubbing it in with a napkin. Goyle was spacing out, and Severus wondered whether he had processed the info of Slytherin winning yet or not. But whatever. Severus allowed himself a small smile, because he was secretly rather pleased and also made a mental note to ask the sorting hat just what he had ever done to it, because year after year it just kept sticking him with the duds.

Severus was swinging his bum Fluffy leg under the table to see if it was completely better, when Dumbledore said something about recent events being taken into account. A deadly hush filled the place, and when Severus chanced a glance at McGonagall, his worst fears were confirmed. She was smiling bigger than ever.

"Ahem," Dumbledore said. Severus sucked in his breath. Fake coughs never boded very well. "I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes…"

Severus knew what was coming. He had been mortally betrayed. Stabbing a piece of meat with unnecessary vigor, he hoped Dumbledore could see his eyes bleeding, because he was dying of melted hopes on fire, here. But the guy just went right on giving unreasonable amounts of points to the Weasley, Potter-the-annoyingly-fortunate, the Bush Hair, and even the boy he beat he could beat up, for something stupid like standing up to his friends. Severus thought that was real weak, since billions of kids had probably done that type of thing all year long, so Dumbledore was really just looking for an excuse to bring Gryffindor into the lead.

Dumbledore said something about needing a change in the decorations, and clapped his hands. The Slytherin snake disappeared from behind Severus, and a Gryffindor lion took its place. All the kids in Severus's house had stricken looks on their faces. A random girl was crying.

Way to get people's hopes up.

Dumbledore then seated himself on McGonagall's other side and began feeding his corrupt soul with the beef casserole that had appeared at the table.

Severus picked at his food. He felt some major heartburn coming on, and wished he had some Pepto Bismol. That stuff was a lifesaver. Meanwhile, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff had apparently decided they hated Slytherin's guts and were cheering way too loud. Severus wondered what the hell gives, and just why couldn't they stuff their pieholes with food already.

"Severus," McGonagall said at a ridiculously high volume. Severus scooted his chair away a bit and got up from the table. McGonagall stood up too.

"Now, now, I was a good sport at losing, so you should give me the same courtesy, don't you think? How about we shake hands?"

Dumbledore paused devouring his bread roll and stared at Severus over the top of his half moon spectacles. With his insides making sounds like an injured animal, Severus leaned forward and shook McGonagall's hand, which felt cold as death. He pasted on a smile which cramped his face ultra bad.

Dumbledore smiled and sunk his fangs back into his unsuspecting bread roll.

Severus went to the dungeons, where he found refuge with a bottle of Pepto, and thought back on the year, only that activity made him sort of want to cry, so he abandoned it real quick and did some cleaning spells on his classroom instead.

Severus then got set packing for when he would go home, which did not take long. So after that he laid on his bed and thought of spells that cut people open. Someone knocked on his door once, but he held his breath and they went away soon after.

Severus must've fallen asleep, because he was jolted awake rather rudely by what he could only assume was an end of the year staff party. Plus every house was probably having a party as well. Due to that whole chunk of partying miscellany, Severus found it real hard to count sheep and all that.

Getting up, he went over to the gargoyle sink in the corner of his room, and floated different kinds of parchment in it awhile. Someone had left reminders of not doing magic at home to give out to the students on his desk. Severus took one of those as a paper sample as well.

When the next morning came, Severus had the duty of escorting the Slytherins out to the train. He kept yelling at Professor Sprout whenever one of her kids got mixed up in his line, which he was trying to keep separate due to certain events the night before. The Pointy-Face Brat was lagging very slow behind, and his cronies were nowhere to be found. When the line dwindled down to the end, Severus reluctantly gave the moneybags kid a chocolate frog from the staff room, not even because he liked the kid or anything, but _really_.

As the Hogwarts Express rumbled off into the distance, Severus watched it leave. Professor McGonagall made a dry sniffing noise, and Hagrid was quite frankly bawling his eyes out over Potter-the-lost-and-found. It was time to leave this party, so to speak. Severus took one last look at Hogwarts, and apparated outside its bounds. It would be a whole summer before he needed to go _there_ again.


End file.
